Fusion
by Mage Ronin
Summary: In a future where all of our favorite Z heros have died, krillin must go to a different dimension to recruit new heros to save the world from a dominating evil.
1. Cris

Chapter 1 

I'd been waiting for this almost the whole time I'd known Triono. I clenched my fist, dropped into my fighting stance and took a deep breath in. Across the dimly lit street he did the same. His stance was a bit more of a laid back one. It reflected his entire style pretty well I thought. His face was calm and emotionless, another good measure of his inner-self.

We stared off for a while, neither willing to make the first move. I would usually wait for him to attack me because I knew I wouldn't have to wait very long, but since our last battle he had seemed calmer and in control of his emotions, maybe he had actually trained a bit or something.

I knew that this would be it, the final battle between us, it was just something I knew when I saw him on the street. One of us would have to die; there was no way out of it. In previous times we had been less equally matched but I knew just by his aura that now we were almost even.

His final remark last time crossed me as somewhat odd, I told him as he was pulling himself up from the ground that maybe he needed to train just a bit harder next time to beat me. He gave me a queer look and said, "I don't train. I fight. I've never trained, never have, and I never will."

I had considered he might have been serious back then but he had such a huge increase in power this time, I knew he must have been lying.

I decided to crack the ice and find out if he were serious at the same time. "So who did you train under to get this strong, you'll have to give me his number."

His face remained motionless as he replied "I thought I told you, I don't train. I fight, I heal, I eat, I sleep and then I go fight again, but I don't train, especially not under the rules of some old-timer like you did."

I tried to figure if he was lying as he almost always had, but I picked up nothing, nada, zippo. There was just nothing to pick up, I decided he was telling the truth, all be it a little un-believable.

He continued to stare at me from across the street. An old newspaper flew off of an over-stuffed garbage can and right between us. Our eyes were intent on each other; nobody in the world could break the concentration we paid to each other.

Triono suddenly chuckled to himself, then gradually it got louder, almost to a roaring howl of laughter.

Unfortunately he also decided to begin the festivities at that very moment. He rushed at me at what I thought was full-speed. He was faster than before but by the early rush, not as fast as I was.

He was halfway across the street in a second when he turned on the jets. He jumped straight at me and through a wild hook punch at my head.

Surprised at his speed I just barely managed to duck under the un-coordinated attack. I replied with a quick jab at his stomach but he shot away to a few metres away.

While I was surprised at his newfound quickness, he must have thought I'd be astounded. He just stood there, his guard down, his head open to attack, how could I resist?

I shot at him with a jump-kick, hoping to lop-off his head before he tried another attack. He brought his arm up just in time and managed to block most of the attack, but he was forced to take a few steps back to keep his balance.

He looked at me with newfound interest, almost as though he hadn't noticed me before. I knew he was going to say something so I beat it to him to it. "Pretty nice, but you know I could've finished it there."

"B.S." He replied, always quick but simple with the mouth he was. "If you want to watch how to finish someone, watch this!" He half-shouted as he ran full-speed at me, I admit I was un-prepared and he could've done some damage but as always he decided to showboat, and as always it cost him.

He stopped short just a foot ahead of me and leaped into the air, maybe 20 metres, did a flip at the apex of his jump and then came down in a hammer-blow position.

Seizing an opportunity too good to miss, I jumped myself right as he reached the top of his jump. I reached him just as he was re-orienting himself in the air and going into his attack pose. I stuck out my elbow and drove it right into his abdomen.

Unlike past times I'd hit him in the gut, it was entirely muscle now. I was again surprised at his tremendous shape, almost as good of shape as I was in. He was sent onto the rooftop of a nearby apartment building from my blow, and crashed into the roof entrance of the building. He almost demolished the small entrance, wrecking the bricks and steel door.

I came back down to the street and looked up at the roof. I could jump up there and continue the fight, but that was almost a waste of energy. I decided to bring the entire roof down.

I hoped no one was in the top floors of the building, but right then, that seemed kind of secondary. I reached back with my hands creating a V shape with the palms touching, focused my mind, and shouted the words needed to create the necessary attack.

"Kame--------Hame" I cried as I felt the powerful river of ki energy rushing through my arms and forming into a ball at base of the V of my hands. "Ha!" I screamed as I moved my hands to face the rooftop and pushed the powerful stream at the location of Triono.

This came easily to me now. Not like when I first created the attack 2 years ago. I was only 13 then, still the best fighter in the planet but lacking the size to intimidate opponents. I was meditating by myself in the Rocky Mountains, off on the western coast of North America. An idea suddenly popped in my head, although I could beat and kill any person in the planet (Triono was still a pathetic weakling then) I needed an attack that was all my own, something that no missile, gun, bazooka, or atomic bomb could equal.

I studied some old Chinese stories about ancient warriors that could focus their ki, their soul into powerful beams of energy. I worked on the Kamehameha attack for 2 months before I was able to launch it.

The first time I did I turned a rock formation the size of the statue of liberty into a pile of dust. It cost me almost all my strength, and I couldn't even train by for almost a week. I also had this feeling that a piece of me was missing but when I had regained my strength I noticed that I felt whole again.

I was impressed by the results as well. Even though I could've destroyed the rock by hand, it was much quicker to do it with the Kamehameha. I had developed several other ki-based attacks like the Kamehameha since then, but my first move was the easiest to pull off and most often produced the best results.

Anyways, the blast struck the roof and shattered the framework, not to mention the concrete, bricks and almost everything else that was part of the roof.

Just as I had predicted Triono was sent flying into the air, several metres away from the blast point of the Kamehameha. I considered easing up on him and thought that maybe I had over-estimated his skill but I remembered the feeling I'd had at the start and decided to keep it going.

I thought of firing another Kamehameha but decided against it, I'd probably miss and I'd need the ki power later on. Instead I jumped onto the roof of the building next to the one I'd wrecked and from there shot up into the air.

Triono was still high above me and was now in control of his body. He turned to me and gave me the finger. I didn't mind much; he could always taunt me as long as I could get in an easy hit.

I immediately concentrated while in the air, and powered up another ki blast. This one though was pushed into my foot, causing it to emanate a dull blue colour. I'd perfected this move not too long ago and still hadn't used it on him, I was hoping it would catch him off guard.

"Dynamite Kick!" Is what I yelled, as my energized foot seemed to take over my control and shot me straight towards him. I moved faster when I did the dynamite kick than when I used any other move, so there was no way he could have blocked or evaded my attack, especially when he was stranded in the air like that, not having any motion at all.

I hit him with the powerful kick in 1 second flat; I covered almost 100 metres in 1 second, which even for me was a record. The blow sent him flying out into the sky, with a slight downward slope to his fall, while I hung in the air for a moment and then gravity caught up with me, sending me to the rubble of the destroyed roof-top.

I went right through the hole of the roof on my descent and crashed through a bed on the top floor. Luckily no one was in it at the time. As soon as I got up I ran to the side of the room, punched out the glass window and hopped down the sidewalk again, falling 8 stories to the pavement.

I turned to my right and ran off to the place that I thought Triono would be. I turned the corner of the ruined building and was met head on with a fist.

I flew through the air from the recoil of the blow, but managed to orient myself and land on my feet across the street. As I looked across I saw Triono smiling to himself, pleased with the results of his punch. I myself was more than a little impressed by his recovery and the strength of his attack. I made sure not to let it show though as the slightest bit of confidence he acquired could make him all the more deadly.

The tastes of blood spread in my mouth as I spit out the residue of the cut he'd given me on the inside of my mouth. "You know if that were me punching you, it would be over right now."

He just kept smiling. It un-nerved me to see him so confident just like it had the first time we'd met up in Canada. Back then he had been a 9 year old bully, with spiky black hair, just like it was now, and a mean streak that said "Hey if anybody wants to mess with me, I'll be more than willing too."

I'd beaten the crap out of him in a few seconds and from that day on he wasn't so confident, until now. I shook off the feeling that maybe he was stronger than I was now. No, that couldn't be, he didn't even train the way I did, he just fought, fought, fought and there was no way that would be enough to beat me.

Not liking the look he was giving me, I decided to try and wipe it off. I wound up and punched the concrete street as hard as I could. Sure enough it shattered, sending a ripple effect throughout the street. The wave moved quickly but not nearly quickly enough, as he easily jumped into the air dodging the attack with relative ease.

He landed on his feet with a soft thud. We stared off yet again, neither one of us willing to give into the others glare.

I don't know why we suddenly rushed each-other, maybe we were so alike the attack that came to mind was the same for both of us. Nevertheless, we both charged ahead at the other at full speed.

Meeting in the center of the street, the real fight began. A flurry of lightning fast punches, kicks and energy blasts were exchanged. For almost 30 seconds neither one of us really landed much other than short jabs and partially blocked attacks, then his glaring weakness reared its ugly head.

His lack of training, or the extensive training of mine, caused him to tire out first. Now 30 seconds doesn't seem like a lot of time for him to tire out in but when you and your opponent are both going full speed, neither letting up or giving an inch, 30 seconds can seem like an eternity. Anyways, one of his forearms didn't move fast enough, and I caught him on the side of the head with a hook shot. He stepped back, but not far enough. I followed up with a fake jab with my left to his head that he attempted to block, and with my right planted a fist in his solar plexus.

I thought that would put him down for at least a little while, so I could regain my composure, but something strange happened. While he did lose almost all of his air and fall to one knee, in a flash he was up again and ready for more.

I was more than willing to oblige him. In one swift motion I side-kicked him in the kneecap, bringing him down to one knee yet again, and backhanded his temple with my right fist. The attack sent him to the ground; his body sprawled across the street.

I took a step back and took in a relaxing breath, hoping to stop the shaking of my hands. He groggily got up from the pavement and looked at me through squinting eyes. We both waited a few seconds for him to get up. He did so slowly, relishing and taking advantage of the fact that I would rarely attack him while he was down.

When he finally got up fully, he stood with his back straight up, his chin high and a trickle of blood running from the side of his head. I could tell he was about to try something, you don't fight a guy dozens of times without learning what his next move will be.

Sure enough, he through a wild punch at my head. Expecting an attack such as this I managed to catch his hand in mine just inches away from my head. Now it was my turn. I raised my hand high and brought it down in an attempt to crack his shoulder, it failed though and he caught my forearm just as I was bringing it down. He pushed with all his strength, and I pushed with all of mine.

For the first time, I was afraid he might beat me in a contest of strength. He was starting to over-power me and I was considering letting go of his fist and jumping away when suddenly he brought around his leg and tripped up my ankle.

I fell backwards onto the ground. I must have landed on my spine because a sharp shooting pain through my back immobilized me for just a second. That was enough for him to axe-kick me in the stomach. The air rushed out of me, as the pain in my back subsided and was replaced by the pain in my abdomen. He next attempted to pin me on the ground in my moment of weakness. I suspected such a try though and was able to roll away from him.

I tried to get up but he kept on me and as I was on my hands and knees, he kicked me savagely in the ribs. I don't think any of them broke, but I did hear a cracking sound. His foot, I hoped.

I was sent onto my back again from the kick and I could hear him charging up his ki blast. The Tasaranko, he called it was much like my Kamehameha except it was discharged in a highly explosive ball form of ki. I realized my chance and made sure to take it.

Even at his fastest pace, he couldn't muster up his ki faster than I could get out of the situation. I pushed myself up with my arms, and setting myself in a crouched position turned to see how he was doing.

His blast was almost complete, and that made it all the better. I kept my eyes trained on him as I prepped my thighs for a quick take-off. Right as he finished completion of the ball, I pushed with all my might into the sky.

I sailed high, just high enough to avoid the shrapnel from the explosion of his attack connecting with the ground. The problem with my evasion however was the fact I couldn't fall anywhere but down.

Despite my best tries I was still unable to fly, the closest I had come was falling very slowly off of one of the Rocky Mountains. As soon as Triono saw I hadn't been hit he readied himself to attack me as soon as I touched the ground.

Seeing the fact that his plan was based on me coming down at my current, peaceful rate of decent, I tried to change it up a little. At the top of my jump I released the flow of ki rushing through my body and covered myself in its energy.

I suddenly shot down at a suicidal speed. He was as un-prepared as I'd hoped. He was forced to give up his attack and scamper away from ground zero.

I crashed into the concrete with all of my force plus the power of the ki to help me. The faint blue glow of ki energy that had encircled me shot out over the street, growing dimmer as it spread farther out. The road beneath me shattered into a thousand pieces, I must have broken through 3 layers of the street.

I wrenched the knee out of the hole in the ground I had created and saw him again preparing to fire a smaller Tasaranko blast. I stood up straight and prepared myself for the attack.

He let loose the tiny ball of energy at me. It came surprisingly slow and I remember thinking as I pivoted my hips to avoid the shot, that Triono was getting tired. I was soon corrected in the most straightforward way known.

Just as the ki ball past me, he leapt from his attack position into a jump-kick. He landed the attack at full force and sent me flying through the air. I landed a good 10 metres away, against the wall of another apartment building.

I cracked the wall nearly 5 metres in each direction, and pain ricocheted along my back to my chest. I squinted as a trail of blood squirmed down my fore-head, I don't remember where I got cut, but it must have been pretty bad.

Trying to keep my head clear, I shook off the blood from my face, and looked at my enemy. He was powering up for another Tasaranko, much bigger than the one he had used for a diversion. I realized I suddenly needed to get out of the situation I was in.

I looked up and behind me, the roof of the apartments wasn't more than 25 metres high and I decided to try for it. I squatted slightly again and then jumped up, back-flipping in mid-air on my way to the roof-top.

When I reached it, I made sure of my footing as I knew he would attack me with his Tasaranko. Sure enough he yelled in frustration and then fired the blast full speed at me. Knowing it would be coming I'd already prepared for it and jumped off across the width of the building, across the street, and onto the roof of another apartment complex.

Once I had landed I turned to my enemy below me and saw him shaking in frustration. I smirked and began thinking of my next move. Little did I know Triono had an idea of his own.

He screamed out in anger once again and yelled at the top of his low-pitched voice, "RENZOKU!" Almost immediately his hands shot up, palms open, and blasts of high-powered ki were shooting from his open fists. The blasts traveled much faster than his Tasaranko, and there were maybe 40 of the cylinder like blasts heading in my direction.

They were moving too fast for me to try and jump to another building so instead I jumped straight up to avoid instead death from the attacks. Instead of hitting me they struck the roof, ripping it to pieces, and creating one major explosion. The shock of the contact between ki and roof was enough to send me flying through the air, luckily away from the explosion.

I closed my eyes when I was sent spinning through the air, so I don't know which direction I went, but I know that when I opened my eyes again, I came head on with a concrete wall at a suicidal 50 miles an hour.

Needless to say I crashed through the wall. I skidded across a floor and came to a stop on my back not far from the hole in the wall I had created. I just rested there for a second, figuring that Triono's attack had wasted itself on the roof that I had been thrown from.

After thinking about it for a second or two, I realized I'd have to get up sooner or later. I sat up, pain nerves going off like crazy, and suddenly saw the roof I had currently occupied.

Sure enough, it was fairly badly destroyed, but not quite as badly as I had thought it would've been. Instead an odd sight came to my eyes, the sight of almost 30 of Triono's little ki blasts heading straight towards me.

They must have been homing blasts, and with that many of them, I didn't see any real way to avoid them. Just because I didn't see a way, didn't stop my body from forcing me to get up and run. I considered myself the luckiest guy in the world in the few seconds it took me to get up. The location in the building that I'd crashed into had a clear view of a window.

As soon as I'd finished getting up, I raced across a carpeted floor, towards my escape clause. I wasn't fast enough though, the first ki blasts that seemed to enjoy my company struck near the whole in the apartment wall I had created.

The resulting explosion hurled me through the window, and I crashed through it as more of the fairly large explosions went off behind me. I knew that there were people in that apartment building, and I knew that for sure all the people on the floor I'd dropped in on would be dead.

I was sent flying through the air, finally crashing onto the ground a good 100 feet from the floor I'd gone off of. Pain rocked through my lower back, but I forced myself to get up. I looked up, and almost the whole apartment building behind me was in flames. I shook my head to the needless destruction, but I didn't have lots of time to mull over it. Triono came leaping from the top of the building, and down towards me. I sprinted as fast as I could away from there, but I was partly winded from the fall. Triono easily caught up to me, and tackled me from behind.

I flew down the street before connecting with the pavement a few metres from my enemy. I rolled onto my back, and saw the full moon high above, its pale white light shining everywhere. Then Triono was on me, he tried leaping on top of me, but I swiftly kicked him in the jaw as he came down, which sent him flying backwards yet again, falling to the pavement.

I tried getting up, but my body didn't like the idea. Pain rocketed through every part of my body, a pool of my blood was forming at my feet, but I still got up. I stared across to my opponent, and for the first time I was fighting him, I felt genuine fear. He'd never hurt me like this, and I'd never had to go all out before.

Triono had a face of pain on his face, but different than ever before. Suddenly, he let out a great gasp, and I thought I saw something shoot out of his rear, I couldn't tell for sure though, the street lights had almost all been destroyed.

Suddenly a huge smile ripped across his face, and he started laughing. "It's back, I can't believe it, it's back!" He then stared at me and said coolly "It's over now Cris, you will die, this fight is over!"

He then looked straight into the moon, which he had to turn around to see, and I saw what had shot out of his back-end. A tail, much like a monkey's tail, had ejected itself from his spinal cord. I remember thinking _what the hell is he? Some kind of freak or something?_

Then a huge monster-like roar emitted from his direction, as police sirens wailed in the distance . . . . .


	2. Triono

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z

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**A/N: This chapter is from Triono's point of view. REMEMBER THAT!**

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Chapter 2

I continued to bellow as my metamorphosis began. The moon, in all its elegance hung high above, its beautiful light flowed into my eyes, immersing my body in it. I could hear my roar overpowering all my other senses; the incredible volume that was emitted by my throat amazed even me. I instantly felt my muscles begin to bulge, as my clothes were soon ripped off my body. The few hairs on body suddenly grew exponentially, getting darker and larger with each second. I looked at Cris across from me, as my height continued to increase, he seemed smaller and smaller, a tiny bug just waiting to be squished. The horrified look on his face was to die for, he was immobilized in fear. All his training couldn't save him from me now, the fight would be over in a few seconds, short of a miracle.

Then the rage came to me. I had completed my transformation, I was at eye level with the roof's of the apartment buildings beside me, and my huge body took up the entire street if not a bit more, I was prepared to fight him. That's when the feeling overcame me. Later on I heard people say when my species transform it's like we go crazy, losing all control and destroying whatever we can. That in-fact is not true; there is just a peerless blood lust that rushes through our veins at all times, when we transform that is magnified immensely. All that happens is we have a somewhat crazy need to destroy everything when we transform. Unless there is something for us to focus on destroying, we will go on a crazy rampage, just to fulfill some sort of biological urge. Luckily for the surrounding people and buildings, Cris' ugly face was more than I needed to focus on him.

I suppose his face wasn't that ugly, I knew he'd had a girlfriend in the north somewhere, but the sight of it gave me a bad taste in my mouth. His mouth was hung open, not daring to emit a sound, as I yelled like a banshee once again, and then began my assault. I walked over to him, crashing the street beneath my feet. He began to move now, trying desperately to get away. He ran full speed away from me, but it was no use, my legs were way too big for him, just a steady trot from me caught up to him. Right before I was on him, he turned at the last second, and shot at me with another of his ki-immersed jump kicks. I tried to catch him in the air, but he moved to quickly for my large arms to block the attack. He struck my stomach and to tell the truth, I felt a bit of pain, like a mosquito biting an elephant. He bounced right off my stomach, and fell to the ground underneath me. With an immobile target such as that, how could I resist?

I rose my foot a good ten feet in the air, and then brought my whole weight down on his motionless body. A sickening crunching sound snapped through the air, as a muffled scream came from under my paw. I screwed my foot like I was putting out a cigarette, before lifting my foot to the side of his body. To my surprise, he was alive, twitching with movement, his arms and legs left in deformed positions. I watched him like a cat watches a mouse before it eats it, saw him squirm onto his side and then with a great push, onto his stomach. I was more amazed than anything when he pushed himself up from the cracked street. The pain was clearly visible on his face, yet he got up, using only his right arm, as his left was immensely disfigured.

A pang of guilt at taking advantage of my transformation hit me. I studied him even more, he was the only one on the planet who could challenge me, if he was gone, I'd have no one to fight. I could never get stronger, not without training at least, and just the thought of working for hours, sweating yourself dry, disgusted me. So for a second I considered letting him live, just going through the city for the night, destroying buildings and such. Then he just had to open his big fat mouth.

"What's wrong monkey-boy? If you ain't gonna do anything, I guess I will." He then raised his good right arm and fired a ki beam from it. I wasn't exactly expecting it, so I didn't even try to stop it. He aimed it perfectly, as he always seemed to do, and it struck me in the throat. My huge voice box was slightly crushed, and when I keeled back in pain, I couldn't even scream very loudly. I covered the wound with my hands as I heard Cris laughing beneath me. In peer anger I stamped with both my feet, cracking the ground beneath me, and striking many of the apartments near me. Then I stepped heavily ahead of me, near Cris. He astounded me even more when he jumped back, narrowly dodging my attack. The crash from the blast of foot upon asphalt he was un-able to avoid though, and it sent him flying a small distance. He landed softly on the ground, but didn't get up this time. I looked at his eyes, they were closed, I think he passed out from pain. In any event, he was out, and I had my chance. Looking back, if I'd succeeded in killing him, none of what we'd go through together would've happened.

I brought back my right hand from my throat, clenched it into a fist and brought it down onto Cris. I closed my eyes so I wouldn't see the blood and the rest of his body. Just a second before I made contact, a buzzing sound went by my right ear and suddenly my fist was stopped in mid-air. I opened my eyes to find what had prevented my victory, but found nothing. I pushed down on my fist with all my weight, but nothing moved. I then realized whatever was blocking must've been small enough to hide behind my fist.

I brought my arm back, and sure enough there was something in the way. Or rather, someone. A short (extremely short) man stood in my way. Not so much stood as floated, he just hung there in the air, not moving at all. I looked him over, he was bald, short, with a big head, a strange orange karate gi, and a muscular build. I couldn't see his face very well, he had turned his head to look at Cris, who was un-conscious behind my new-found enemy. Slowly, oh so slowly, he turned around to face me again. I saw his face now, kind of strange to tell you the truth, his fore-head had six burned little dots in it, kind of like a birthmark. There was something else about his face that seemed strange (beside the enormity of his head). Then it finally hit me, he had no nose, now I've been called a freak before, but I'd rather have a tail than no nose. His aura wasn't all that powerful, sure as hell not powerful enough to stop me like he did.

He examined me like a judge in a bathing suit contest, before finally grinning at me. I became enraged, this stocky little guy thought he could fight me or something, I was bringing up my left foot to kick him with when suddenly he disappeared. He didn't really disappear, just sort of blurred out of vision as I lost the feel of his aura. Then suddenly, not a split second after he had left, he appeared again, right in front of my heart. I didn't have time to react, just time to see him hit me. He used one fist, one measly punch to send me flying. And I mean flying, I must've gone nearly a whole block from this one little punch. My whole body smacked into the ground at suicidal speeds, whip lashing my neck and leaving me immobilized on my back.

I roared slightly, and looked around for my attacker. Off to my left was a bunch of cop cars driving towards me. I opened my mouth and let fly a beam that incinerated the cars and their occupants, leaving charred metal and a burning smell in the air. I then pushed myself up from the ground, my top ribs were insinuated in pain until it overcame my mind and just movement became a marathon. Somehow though I did rise from the ground, and began my search for my attacker.

It wasn't hard to find him, he wasn't hiding or anything, he was just confidently walking towards me. I wasn't prepared for this, I'd never been beaten in my transformed state before, I'd done it three times and each time I went un-challenged. I tilted my head to the side before opening my mouth again and firing another ki beam. I didn't see if it hit him or not, my eyes were blocked by my open jaw. The explosion was amazing though, creating a giant crater in the ground and sending Cris' limp body flying even farther.

I didn't feel the shrimp's ki anywhere around, so I assumed I'd hit him. Boy did I assume wrong. A rock hit me in the side of the head, and I turned my neck to see what threw it at me. The q-ball stood on the edge of the roof of an apartment building, hands on his hips, laughing at me.

I roared in disgust, and then swung a wild fist at him. He didn't move to avoid it this time, instead, he blocked my fist with his forearm. That's right, my hand, the size of buick, was stopped by this runt. Suddenly he brought up his other arm and fired a small ki blast from it.

The orange ball struck me in my already damaged sternum. Again I went for a nice little ride, this time straight into an apartment building opposite the one my enemy held.

I crashed straight through the building. My huge frame crushed and tore away the bricks and steel of the building, creating a sort of bed for me. I was lying on my back once again, clutching my enormous chest with my equally large palms, as I writhed in pain. I didn't know how this little bastard was so strong.

There was no way this little midget was going to beat me. I rose from the rubble of the building moaning loudly as my body, racked with pain, told me to simply lie back down. I stared straight into the now expressionless face of my attacker, and I caught the sight of Cris off to my left struggling to his feet, simply amazing. I roared a battle cry and charged at the baldy, fists raised high. I brought them crushing down on the roof of the building, but half a second before I made contact, he blurred out of view again.

My hands crashed through the corner of roof, sending shrapnel as far as Cris. I looked around but found no trace of the short assailant. Suddenly, I sensed an incredibly powerful surge of energy above me. Just as I turned to face it, a yell emanated from seemingly all around me.

"Destructo Disc!" Was what the booming voice yelled, and I saw my attacker once again. He was hovering above and behind me, with a cylinder of energy floating above his right, outstretched palm.

He hurled the attack with such force that I couldn't even see it. Suddenly pain and the sound of out-pouring blood came from my rear-end. I looked back, and sure enough, my worst fears were confirmed, the blast cut straight through the base of my tail, and as the shaft of the furry little tail fell to the ground, I began shrinking, and suddenly I was very tired . . . . . . .

It'd been nearly five years since my mom had died. I didn't know why she came to my dream until it was all over, her message had been hard to interpret. She came up to me, her waist length brown hair blowing behind her, pushed by some invisible force, her dark blue eyes giving off her famous dark glow, the black dress she always wore was clean and wrinkle-free. She stood above me, looking at me with those penetrating eyes, and then she knelt in-front of me, leaned in beside my ear and whispered softly in her calm and knowing voice. "I told you didn't I? Now go and do it." A sob emitted from my throat and she passed her hand through my hair. Then suddenly I was watching from a third person perspective, and I saw myself the night I found her dead in the street, naked, curled in a ball, crying violently, and she just knelt there, a worried look on her face and her hand in my hair.

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**A/N: Well another chapter out. Hope you like this one. If you are confused about the story, read this line and think real hard---->Like I said in the first chapter,the story is going to be from someone's point of view. Each chapter is told by a different person. This ia a new writing style that I am trying to master. Please R&R to tell me if you hate or like the style. **

**By the way can anyone guess whw 'Q-ball' is?**


	3. Cris: Who are you?

Chapter 3 

Even as I witnessed the fight between my un-known protector and Triono, I saw it as if I was watching it on TV. I'd never seen such power or speed in a single entity before, but this bald headed man possessed skill far beyond either Triono's range or mine. I found it incredibly hard to believe how strong the man was, single punches had left Triono badly beaten and hanging onto life. Even a Kamehameha from me wouldn't have put a dent in Triono while he was transformed like that.

I looked at my defender, he was holding over the naked and used up body of Triono, looking over it like a mother protecting its young. Pain rocketed through my left shoulder and arm, causing me to clasp them with my right arm and grimace. My vision was becoming blurry, so before I slipped into sleep, I gimped over to my nemesis' body. The bald fighter had landed back on the ground when I arrived and was now checking Triono's pulse.

I came up from behind him, but right before I reached him, he turned his head and looked at me. "How are you?" He asked. I didn't reply, I was still in awe of the way he dispatched transformed Triono. When I didn't respond he completely turned and questioned me again. "Well, you ok?"

His voice, somewhat high pitched, set me off even more. I looked at him through squinting eyes, summing him up even more, before finally I replied, "I'll be ok, I just need to get to a hospital."

"Don't have time for that." He flatly stated. I would've shown the surprise I felt from his remark, but a wave of pain placed a frame of agony on my face. I'd run out of energy, completely, I suddenly had trouble standing, and I almost collapsed into the ground when the man caught me by my injured arm. I screamed out as ripples of pain that dulled my mind shot from my arm, his hand was like a vice-grip.

"Oh shit, sorry." He said, but still held onto my arm, supporting me. "Let me see what's the problem." He then took his free hand and passed it slowly over my arm, from shoulder to wrist, and I felt a sort tingling sensation through the arm, replacing the pain for a short while.

When he finished with whatever he was doing, he released my arm, and the tingling disappeared. The pain came back, quite a bit duller though. "Broken fore-arm, bone chips in elbow, dislocated shoulder." He said it like a doctor reading a chart. Then continued in a sympathetic voice "This could hurt a little."

He then grabbed my fore-arm and without a second thought, shoved it back into place, the pain that he'd help to go away came back with a vengeance, and I screamed again, but it would only get worse, as he then moved up to my elbow and with a single hand, crushed my elbow, I clamped a fist with my right hand and almost swung it at him, but then I remembered Triono's beating and thought better of it.

After what seemed like an eternity crushing bone fragments in my elbow, he moved up to my shoulder and using both hands crammed my arm back into it's socket. When he finished he let go of me and I fell to the ground in a heap of pain.

My new MD then proceeded to drop a small green bean in front of me. "Eat that, it'll help, I promise." He said. My adopted momma didn't raise no fool though, I didn't take food from a stranger.

"What is it?" I asked as I stared up at him.

He looked at me like I was a kid who had just said no to his parents for the first time. "They call it a senzu bean, it'll give you your strength back and speed up the recovery process quite a bit."

I picked up the small bean, and felt its smooth, hard surface before I popped it in my mouth. It was much harder than expected, like a small candy, but I'd finished it off in a few seconds.

At first nothing happened, the pain remained in my arm, and I still felt weak as a puppy, but then there was a huge rush of energy, like I'd just gotten my second wind. My muscles regained their strength; my arm stopped throbbing with pain, reducing to soreness. I hopped to my feet; eyes wide open, and asked him "What are in those things?"

"Don't know." He replied, then shrugged and grinned slightly "I don't grow them, just eat them."

"Right." I nodded and looked down at my doctor. Indeed he was short, maybe 5 feet at the most, I was 5'11", so I was towering over him, he didn't mind though, I was sure he was used to being the short one. He was still focusing on Triono, shaking his head and mumbling to himself. "What happened to him, how did he transform like that?" I asked.

"He's a saiyan, they all have the ability to transform, as long as they have a tail." Hold on a second, I remember thinking, a saiyan, what the hell was that? Triono was different, I knew that, but how did this guy know this about Triono?

"What's a saiyan? Plus who are you anyways?" I sternly questioned.

He turned to face me, and stuck out his short, stubby arm. "Name's Krillin, glad to meet you." I shook his hand tentatively, and then introduced myself. "I'm Cris, and he," I said, looking down at my lifeless opponent, "is Triono."

He nodded again, and then looked back to Triono. I wish he paid me a bit more attention, but he healed me, what more could I ask for? Still, I wish he'd answer my question about saiyans. I was about to ask again when he cut me off with the answer. "You asked what saiyans were?" He asked rhetorically "They're a race. A race of warriors, unparalleled by most species of the universe, they strike fear into their enemies. They used to act as sort of planet brokers, clearing all sentient life off a planet to allow it to be used by their clients. They are all born with tails like Tri-ono," He sounded out the name. "Whenever there is a full moon, if they have a tail, they can look into the moon and they will transform into a beast like the one that attacked you." I tried to take this all in, but most of it was just bouncing off me, all I cared to hear was Triono was an alien. All the time I'd known him, he seemed completely normal (well, as normal as people as strong as us could get), but now it made sense. He never seemed to care much about talking out problems, just fighting to solve them, even if they didn't solve anything, like most of our fights. Krillin continued, but I didn't really pay much attention, I just stared at the motionless body of Triono, wondering why I'd never seen it earlier. "Triono must not have trained a whole lot, if he had, you wouldn't have stood a chance." I nodded absent-mindedly, and was about to say what Triono did to get stronger, fight, when Krillin said something that caught my ear. "Thing is, there've never been any saiyans in this dimension."

I wasn't sure I heard him right so I shot him a strange look and asked "This dimension?"

He nodded and then tried to explain. "This dimension, the one we're in right now, is just one of many. I come from a totally different dimension, where powers like yours, mine, and Triono's are common. I'm surprised to find powers as strong as yours in this dimension, I've been here five weeks, and not in all the galaxy have I sensed powers as strong as your guys'." He paused, and then took a look around the street, like he was looking at it for the first time. "I'm also amazed at how similar your planet is to the earth from my dimension."

He'd lost me again, "Hold on a minute. You mean to tell me that there are other dimensions parallel to this one?" Science always was my worst subject.

"Some are parallel, like yours and mine. They're nearly exactly the same, except something happened in this dimension," He said as he stared into the moon and stars "that changed it dramatically from mine. In my dimension there are literally millions of different sentient species, but here, it's limited to only a few hundred, something must have wiped the early stages of them out or something."

He breathed deeply, and a moan came from Triono beneath us. "He might wake up pretty soon." I stated.

"Yup, we better get a move on." With one hand he picked up Triono's body and slung it between his arm and torso. "If you want to come with me, I'll explain what I'm doing in your dimension and you can decide if you want to come with me." He stuck out his free hand, palm outstretched

I considered telling him no, just thanking him for the healing bean, and then catch a train back to Canada, see Seana for the first time in two months. It'd been hard to go that long without even talking to her, but something inside of me told me to just take his hand, and hope he wouldn't kill me.

After a few seconds I took a deep breath and then latched onto his arm. He smiled slightly, and then suddenly we were off. I'd flown before, but only in planes and helicopters, this was totally new. No engine, just his own power, which was increasing with each second, propelled him. My breath was gone in a few seconds, by that time we were at least five clicks above ground, and the apartments were suddenly small dots in the distance. A rush of adrenaline pulsed through me; I dug into his arm with my nails, and looked up at him. He turned to me and smiled. "Never flown before?"

"Not like this!" I replied, and to calm myself I closed my eyes and practised a relaxation technique I'd learnt as a kid. Trying to take long, deep breaths, I gradually pushed down the anxiety building inside me. The air rushed by us so fast it roared in my ears like I was standing next to a rack of stereo's going full blast. I opened my eyes again, and then looked to Krillin.

He was concentrated on, steering I guess is the best way to say it. I didn't want to interrupt him, so I tried to catch a glimpse of Triono across Krillin's body. He was still knocked out, his black hair covering his face, pushed by the wind. Millions of thoughts passed through my mind about Triono. Who were his parents? Why was he on earth if he was an alien? What was his child-hood like if he had a tail? All of these and many more whizzed through my head, and I suddenly felt sorrow and pity for my enemy. I wish I knew him a bit better, but I had a feeling we'd be getting to know each other very soon.

Suddenly Krillin's voice startled me. "So, what do you want to know?" He wondered.

I didn't know where to start, but since I had been thinking about Triono, I said "Tell me about saiyans."

He shrugged and then said, "Well, I don't know a whole lot, just what I've picked up from my friends. You can read up on them if you come over." I didn't understand what he meant, but before I could ask him he said, "I guess I could give you an outline though. First off, their home planet was called Vegeta. It was a huge planet, almost three times as big as Earth, and it also had gravity 10 times that of Earth's. There were originally two races on this planet, I can't remember the name of the other one, but eventually a war broke out between the saiyans and the other race. The war was going evenly, until one night there was a full moon on Vegeta, and as you know now, when the saiyans look into the full moon they transform into those huge apes. The other race was over-run and the saiyans took over. They were stuck on Vegeta though, which was now damaged badly by the war, and in order to get technology and money, they struck an alliance with another race on a far off planet. This alliance called for the saiyans to take over planets that were suitable for habitation or farms and give them to their new allies.

"This mutually benefited both species, so the saiyans began taking other clients, garnering wide masses of riches and power from their clients. Eventually one client, an evil being named Freeza, monopolized the saiyans, and used them for his own personal wishes. Soon though, Freeza saw that the saiyans, and their ever growing numbers and strength, might pose a problem to his personal power, so he destroyed the planet Vegeta and with it almost all of the saiyans." I gasped when I heard this, a single being able to destroy an entire planet and its inhabitants, and if they were as strong as Triono, this Freeza must've been pretty damn strong. "Only seven saiyans were off the planet when it was destroyed. I guess eight though if you count Triono. And that was 200 years ago."

I absorbed all this data rather quickly, the history of Triono's people. "Eventually though, Freeza met his match. A saiyan, named Goku, defeated the murderer by turning into a Super Saiyan. In this form, Freeza was no match for Goku, and eventually he was defeated. That basically sums up the history of the saiyan race. No one has ever heard of a saiyan since the last of the race died. Triono might change everything, a saiyan that may very well be able to bring back the species. And if he's a full-blooded saiyan, it's even better.

"Anything else?" He asked as he continued looking onward. I began thinking, and looked around for some ideas. We were far out of the city now, in-fact when I looked back, I couldn't even see the lights from it, we must have been going at extremely high speeds. I remained silent for a while, searching for a question, when one popped in my head.

"Why are you here in this dimension at all?"

"Simply put, I came here to find people just like you. You see Cris, there's a war coming. And it doesn't involve you or Triono at all, but it will if my dimension loses this war. I've come to your dimension to bring new warriors back to my plane. All the greatest warriors of my time, the Z warriors we called them, have died of old age. Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Trunks, Goten, the list goes on and on, I'm the only remaining Z warrior left, and soon I will have to pass on too. We were the protectors of our dimension; our universe relied on us to keep it free of evil. Without us to keep the peace in the universe, evil has risen again, and there are no fighters powerful enough to destroy the evil army heading towards Earth. In just a few years, they will arrive on Earth, the breeding ground of the most powerful combatants in the universe, and if no one stops them, they will have complete domination over all life in the universe. I was sent here by chance really, I was on my way to a planet called Namek, as I'd heard of a good fighter from there, when I hit some sort of rift in space and time. Don't ask me how, but I was sent here, to your dimension. So I did the job I was supposed to, find fighters with potential to be the next Z warriors. My search led me to Earth, where I found you and Triono."

Great, so Krillin was some scout from the major leagues coming down to my level to seek out new talent. "You said something about the upcoming war affecting my dimension. What do you mean?"

"We're pretty sure this army has a device that will allow them access to any dimension that is relatively similar to ours, that means yours. The problem they have is it requires power of more than a thousand stars combined. They have no way to harness this power, except if they wish for it with the dragon balls."

"What are dragon balls?" I asked, I felt like a stupid little kid who was learning his multiplication tables.

"Ah, the dragon balls, really the source of all our problems on earth. The dragon balls are a creation of our Kami, or god. They allow anyone who has all seven balls to make any wish they want, and it will come true. There are limits to the dragon balls power, but the harnessing of the power needed to work their machine could be wished for. So we can't let them get all seven dragon balls, if they do it would mean domination of every type of life everywhere, not just limited to our dimension."

I swallowed heavily, if I got the message right, Krillin would want me to come with him to his dimension, and fight this evil army. I wasn't afraid of any fight, especially not if it was for all the right reasons, but I had to know one thing. "Are these guys as powerful as Freeza?"

He looked at me solemnly and then almost whispered "Freeza's a pip-squeak compared to these guys." He saw the look of fear on my face, but instead of letting me voice my concerns he said, "We're here, my space pod's right down there."

I couldn't see anything now, the night was dark, and clouds had covered the moon where we were. Suddenly we dove, headfirst at suicidal speeds towards a farmer's field. All my blood rushed to my feet, and I almost passed out, but right before we hit the ground, we slowed to a nice slow glide before touching down.

It felt good to be on land again, but I was disoriented and almost fell to the ground. Krillin looked at me funny and said "We'll teach you how to fly like that if you come with me." I didn't know who he meant by 'we' but the thought of moving that fast sent a thrill up my spine.

"If I go with you, when would I be able to come back?" I asked, the whole time the thought of moving at such amazing speeds held control over my mind.

"They'll arrive in three years, after it's all over, this dimension could use a good protector."

I looked at Triono, and wondered "What about Triono?"

"He doesn't belong here anyways, he must've somehow arrived in your dimension from ours, maybe in the same way I did."

I pondered the thought of going with him, the chance of a lifetime, go to save the universe from pure evil. I didn't know how I'd explain this to Seana, I'd have to talk to her, somehow. Let her know what was happening. "Could I go see someone, before we leave?"

"Sorry Cris, the dimensional warp or whatever it is I came through is disappearing as we speak, we might not even make it as it is, so we have to go now."

I didn't know if I could just leave her like that, but I'd be fighting for her, for everyone on my planet, for my universe itself. A kind of pride arose in my heart, but I quickly quelled it, no delusions of grandeur for me.

I stood there for maybe a minute, Krillin shifting impatiently from side to side, before I finally made up my mind. "Let's do it."

I'd made my choice, I didn't know if it was the right one, but it had been mine to make, and I'd done it. Now all that was left was to save the universe. More easily said than done of course, but I felt up to the challenge. A giddiness to begin crept up on me and I turned to Krillin and said "So where's your ship, I wanna get going."

He reached into his gi, and pulled out a small capsule, then stated, "Right here." He pushed the compressible top of the cylinder capsule, and then threw it at least 20 meters away. I didn't know what was going on, and I had turned to ask when a gigantic 'pop' sound rang through my ears. I whipped my body around to face the sound, and where my bald headed friend had thrown the capsule, a gigantic space ship was resting comfortably.

It was a large sphere like ship, with huge circle windows on each of its sides, and landing struts supporting the base of the ship, holding it a few meters above ground. Above the main front window, at least 20 meters in width the word CAPSULE was spelt in capital letters. "How'd you get that ship out of no-where?" I asked Krillin.

"Capsule of course." He looked at me oddly, but then nodded his head "Oh yeah, you guys don't have them here, our dimension must be a little ahead in the technology department."

"How do you fit an entire ship into a small little capsule like that?" I questioned, my voice was cracking slightly, which was pretty embarrassing at the time.

"Don't ask me, I have no idea. Kinda like the senzu beans, I just use them, don't know what makes them work."

"Ok." Not knowing things wasn't something new to me, but I didn't feel incredibly safe hopping into a space ship that came out of basically no where. The craft was huge, maybe 50 meters tall and 30 meters wide, but Krillin didn't seem to take much notice.

He walked up to the base of the ship and then floated up to a small beeping control panel near the large window. He punched in a few buttons, and there was a large pressurizing sound, followed by a small walkway being ejected from a space under the main window.

After a few seconds the walkway touched the ground just right in front of me. I began walking up the small ramp, and in a few seconds was at the main window, when I approached it, it split into five different sections and each shot away from me, creating a huge opening for me to walk inside the ship.

Krillin was right behind me, carrying Triono behind him. In a few seconds we were both inside the ship. It had red tiled floors, with red padded walls and a red tinted window-roof. There were two chairs placed in front of two control panels to my left, probably for the pilot(s) I assumed, and there were also four passenger seats behind those two. Right in the middle of the ship was a huge cylinder, reaching from the floor to the roof, with several buttons and control panels along the side of it. There was a small liquid crystal display screen that had the simple display of: 1 G on the cylinder. I didn't know what it meant, but at that time I didn't really care.

"Nice ship you got here." I told Krillin, while still admiring the sheer size of the craft.

"Thanks, if you don't mind, could you buckle Triono into one of those passenger seats?" He asked while he pointed to the seats behind the pilots' chairs.

"Sure." I said as I jogged over to Krillin who was near the cylinder in the center of the vessel. He handed me Triono's still limp body, and as I dragged him over to the near seat, I could hear his light breathing and the rising and falling of his chest. I knew he'd be good as new if he ever woke up and ate one of those senzu beans of Krillin's.

I plopped my saiyan buddies body into the chair, front wards facing, and then reached around him for the seatbelt, but couldn't find it. I continued searching for a few seconds before Krillin said, "You won't find it. Here look out." He walked up to the seat, and gently pulled me away. Then he cleared his throat and announced "Seatbelt on chair five."

Small holes appeared on the side of the chair, and then small seatbelts protruded from them, all told there were four belts and they all came together right over Triono's chest. "Pretty cool eh?" Krillin smirked afterwards.

I nodded slightly and then turned to take one of the pilots' seats. Krillin hopped right over my head and into the left pilots seat before I even got close. "Seatbelt on chair one." The seatbelt ejected itself on his chair as well. "Cris, go take a seat, we have to get going."

Instead of taking the other pilots seat, as I desired, I settled for another passenger's chair right behind Krillin. I opened my mouth to ask him which chair it was I was in, but he beat me to it. "Seatbelt on chair three." The seatbelt collapsed over me snugly, and I leaned back, looking upwards through the red roof. "Ready to go?" Krillin's child like voice asked.

"Yeah, let's do it." I stated as he pushed a few buttons.

"Here goes." He then grabbed onto the sides of his chair for all he was worth. Not wanting to be left out, I did the same, not knowing fully what to expect. At first there was no feeling, but I saw fire coming out from under the ship. Then a slight rumbling came over the craft, just a little rocking really, and then we started to go upwards. Slowly at first, soon the ship built up speed, and a loud whining sound was heard throughout. The rocking that had been so tame at the start was now becoming ferocious, and soon I was being thrown around like a paperweight. If not for my seatbelt, I would've been plastered against the wall. I didn't know why, but as we continued upwards with such incredible speed, anxiety began pushing itself upwards through me. All the blood was rushing to my toes and it felt like a ton of bricks was being placed on my neck, only the fear moved upwards. The whine was getting louder too, like something was about to max out.

I tried everything to relax, but nothing worked, not my breathing techniques, not even meditation worked, as the whine overpowered my ability to hear myself think. I tried to take deep calming breaths, but they came out short and un-coordinated, and suddenly, I was hyperventilating. Then I remembered a little something in my back pocket.

Fire had encompassed the ship, it was bathed in red, and inside it was getting extremely hot, but even through all the rumblings of the ship, I was able to reach back and pull out a picture from my back pocket. I always kept it there, and it always put my mind at ease. Her beautiful face always made put my heart at rest. Her hair, long dark and flowing, her eyes, dark and penetrating, her smile, joyful and invigorating. I then realized how lucky I was to have her, I really didn't know how she could put up with me some times, hell I was hardly ever in Windsor, but when I was, I made sure we were together. I just stared at her picture, and soon, I was completely calm, nothing else in the world mattered. I took a deep breath, and then put the picture back in its rightful spot. Just as I did, Krillin said, "You ok back there?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." I sort of whispered it, as my voice had been cut off in my throat, a large lump had collected there.

He obviously didn't hear me but said "Sorry about the bumpy ride, your atmosphere's a little different then the one on my earth." I was about to ask what the point of having a spaceship that couldn't land or leave planets with different atmospheres was, but I stopped myself.

We sat there for a few seconds and then the rumbling of the ship stopped. I looked around, and then Krillin announced "That should be the worst of it, I'll set a course for the anomaly that brought me here, hopefully it'll be able to send us back to my dimension."

He then proceeded to turn off the seatbelts for both his and my chairs. I was astounded to find that even in space we had regular gravity. I stood up, and then hopped a little, still amazed. "How do we have gravity up here?" I asked eventually.

He walked by me to the tall pillar in the center of the ship, and tapped the controls "This baby right here. It can create a gravity field anywhere from 0 to 100 gravities that covers the entire inside of the ship."

Something didn't seem quite right about that "What's the use of having a gravity field 100 times normal?"

"You'll see." He slyly replied, then he turned to the main window and said "You might want to take a last look, you might not see it again in a while."

I turned to the large window, and there was the Earth. In space it looked amazing, from thousands of kilometers away, it was more beautiful than anything I'd ever seen. I slowly walked to the window, peering out, taking in the tremendous sight. The giant clouds drifted lazily across the rich green landmasses, while the seas were crystal clear and blue. I fell in a trance, as the splendor of my world suddenly hit me. That image, of the planet, as it eventually got smaller and smaller, was burned into my mind. That was what I was going to be fighting for. I continued to stare, even as I could see less and less of it with each passing second, and for the thirty seconds I could see it, a feel of responsibility came over me, and right then and there, I knew I wasn't coming back until I was able to protect that planet by myself.

Krillin allowed me to stare to my hearts content, before finally snapping me out of it. "Uh.. Cris?" He asked slowly.

I turned to him and my eyes were somewhat watery, so I blinked a few times before I could see him clearly. "Yeah."

"You o.k.?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

"You hungry at all?" Krillin asked once I'd finally backed away from the window.

"Not at all actually." I shook my head, I hadn't eaten in almost a day, but I really wasn't hungry. "Even though I haven't eaten for a long time. Weird."

"Not really, that senzu bean that you ate, it'll keep you full for almost a week." A week? That sounded nice, but I found it a little hard to believe. It was a strange day though, so I didn't bother to ask if he was serious. The ship was now speeding past another planet, mars I assumed, and I wondered how long it would be till we got to where we needed to go.

I studied Krillin silently, as he rummaged through a backpack bag leaned against the wall. His power was mind boggling, but now he seemed near normal. He pulled his head out of the bag and exclaimed "Ah, that's where I put it!" He shot up off the floor and raced to the pilots' controls. There he rummaged around a bit more, and as I moved to get a better view of him, he pulled a small object from under the desk-like control panel.

"Here it is." He turned to face me, and I stopped in my tracks. In his hand was what looked like a phone headset with a few altercations. It had a white earpiece with a small blue screen attached. He put the white part on his left ear so the screen covered his eye. He then pushed a small button on the white part and suddenly the screen sprang to life, emitting beeping sounds and showing yellow figures and numbers all across it.

"What's that?" I questioned.

He replied after pressing the button a few more times "It's called a scouter. It'll let me see your power expressed as a number. It's just a way to find an approximation of your power level." He then pressed the button a final time, and then dropped his hand. I couldn't make out the number on the screen, so I asked him "What does it say?"

He bit his lip slightly and then replied "304."

I hesitantly asked, "Is that good?"

He looked at me sideways faced and then replied "Compared to a normal human being, you'd be incredibly strong, but the people we're fighting have power levels anywhere from ten thousand to a six hundred million." I gasped when he said that, and I didn't know exactly what to say. I stood there in stunned silence, and doing some thumbnail calculations, figured out how much I'd have to improve to reach even the weakest of them.

"You mean I'll have to get 30 times stronger than I am now to be able to take one of these guys?"

He nodded slightly, and then turned to face the unconscious Triono. "Let's see what his power level is at." He pushed the button again, and then after a few seconds said "270. Probably a bit low because he's unconscious."

In order to get an idea of how powerful these guys were I asked "What's your power level at?"

"Last time I checked, it was near 50,000,000."

I didn't know how to take that, but I knew what it meant. It meant that Krillin was a weakling compared to the more powerful guys coming towards Krillin's Earth. If I'd known what I was getting into, I might not have been so eager to volunteer. "Please tell me Triono and I aren't the only guys going to fight these guys."

He responded quickly enough to put my mind at ease "No, don't worry, there were at least four humans that were training for the androids on earth when I left. Plus if they got the fighter I was going to find on Namek that makes a total of seven."

Even with the answer he seemed a little off set. "What's wrong?"

"Well, see they've been training for a while already, when I left, the human's power levels were around 3,000 each."

I smacked my lips and said "Great, so ten times stronger than me?"

"Basically yeah. But all that means is that you and Triono are going to have to train a whole lot harder to catch up to them."

"Well I know I'll try my best, but I can't speak for Triono. He despises training of any kind, he just fights."

Krillin grinned slightly, showing off his sparkling white teeth "That's because he's a saiyan, it's in their blood to fight and do nothing else, but even Vegeta learned that training can help you out a lot more than fighting sometimes."

A voice startled both of us, causing me to almost jump onto the roof. "What the hell are you guys talking about?" It was Triono, who was now out of his seat, the restraints thrown askew across the ship's floor. "What the hell is this?"

We both turned to Triono, then looked at each other, both wanting the other to explain. "Well? Where am I? Cris what are you doing here? How did you survive?" He was focused on me for a little while, and I could see his shoulders heaving, his blood rushing quickly, but then he spotted Krillin and turned to him.

"You!" He rushed full force at Krillin, and attempted to spear my newfound friend.

I yelled hoping to stop Triono "Wait Triono, we can explain everything." And it seemed to work, he pulled up just feet from Krillin, and suddenly his breathing was shallower, and I could sense the anger leaving him. Then I saw Krillin in front of him, his palm was out-stretched towards Triono, and I could hear Krillin whispering softly "It's ok, no one's here to hurt you. Just take a seat, and the answers will come."

Triono did exactly as he said, and that's when I felt some sort of ki stream coming from Krillin straight towards Triono. Krillin must have had the ability to calm people's minds, or something along those lines, because Triono's previously tense body relaxed and he sat back down in his chair. His angered expression was replaced by one of restlessness.

Krillin walked up to him, and placed his hand on Triono's forehead. "I'll pass over my memories now, the ones that will clarify everything." He then closed his eyes and Triono did the same. I stood there dumbfounded at how easily Krillin had settled the saiyan down. Within a few seconds, Krillin slowly took his hand away and they both opened their eyes in unison.

Triono calmly asked "So are we almost there yet?" I was amazed at how coherent he seemed, but whatever Krillin had done had kept him calm and alert at the same time.

"We're almost there." Krillin replied, as he sat back down in the pilot's chair. I looked out the window, and we were going past Uranus and I was still astounded at the speed of the ship, like something out of Star Trek or something. When I turned back to the ship, I caught Triono staring at me. He didn't say anything, just looked me up and then down. I returned the favor, not one to let him get the best of me, as I examined him thoroughly, he was nicked up, but looked none the worse for ware considering the beating he took from Krillin. Something wasn't right though, and then I realized he was clothed again, this time in a tunic and loose fitting pants. After the transformation he was as naked as a Donald Duck, but now he was clothed, as he was when he got up from his seat, I'd just never noticed it before.

"Where'd you get those?" I wondered aloud.

"I put them on him, right after take-off, you were looking out the window still." Ah, that was probably it, but back then Triono was still buckled up. I was going to ask how Krillin got them on him, but he cut me off. "We're almost there, just around the corner basically. You guys wanna come up here and take a look?"

Triono and I both walked towards where Krillin was seated. He was busy fidgeting with the controls, but Triono and I both looked out towards the scenery. Without looking up, Krillin asked, "Can you see it?"

We both stared, squinting into the starlit darkness. I was scanning the proverbial horizon, when suddenly one of the brighter stars seemingly dimmed out of view. I quickly pointed and wondered aloud, "Is that it?"

Krillin looked up and grinned, then nodded and hunched back over the controls. "Very good Cris, it has about the same effect as a black hole, only a bit less powerful, you can see through the gate to my dimension, but not very well."

"So are we gonna make it?" Triono asked with a slight hint of tension in his voice.

"We should get to it in time, the problem may be piloting this bulky ship through the narrow gate-way, it's getting smaller every second." I sighed, there wasn't anything I could do. We continued to move onward, to where Pluto was even getting small in the rear view window. The "gate" was now dimming more and more stars as we came closer to it and it took up more of the front window. Soon it was completely encompassing the view outside, and I began feeling a lot of tension coming from Krillin, I directed my attention to him. He was sweating heavily, his fingers racing across the controls at light speed, literally I couldn't see his hands move they were going so fast, they just appeared as sort of a blur. I blinked a few times to make sure I was seeing it correctly, then I tapped the nearby Triono on the shoulder, and nodded towards the pilot. Triono's jaw dropped when he saw Krillin at work, as we both stared at his amazing hand speed. He then broke our concentration by saying; "Hold on," tension was straining his already squeaky voice "almost there!"

Suddenly a sort of gray wave went through the ship, and for a split second my whole life flashed before my eyes, like if I was going to die, only I was very much alive. As we passed through the gate, I turned away to my left and looked out the window, across from us, not ten meters away was another ship, almost identical to the one we were in, only it was slightly smaller. I could see right through its side window, and I could see its occupants. There was only one, a tall, youthful looking man. He was extremely muscular, but not to an extent that limited his movement, he was clothed in a gi much like Krillin's, his hair was red and springy, kind of like Triono's, except it was less symmetrical and even taller. His eyes were a light tint of green, and then I realized he was staring at me, his mouth hung open in disbelief, he just stared at me, and I stared back. Our eyes locked, but only for a moment, for as soon as I saw him and his ship, we were through the gate, and into the other dimension. I didn't tell either Krillin or Triono what I saw; I almost didn't believe it myself.

After we had passed through the gate, and the gray tint that had engulfed the ship faded away, leaving the yellowish color from the on-board strobe lights. Krillin fell back onto his seat, almost exhausted, and then looked to the both of us before saying "We made it, not by much, but we did it. Now we just gotta head back to earth, and then you guys can get started."

I swallowed deeply, as the ship banked to the right, and shot straight around this universe's Pluto. I was amazed that they had a Pluto here; in fact I was stunned, which brought up an interesting point. "So when are we going to be able to learn the history of yo—" I stopped myself short "of our dimension."

Krillin stood from his chair, as Triono and I rose to our full heights, Triono being slightly shorter than me still towered over Krillin. "When we get to earth, you guys can have a few days to read up on our history, on the Z warriors, on the dragon balls, on everything. Once you're finished that your training can begin."

Triono didn't try to hide the disgusted look on his face, I didn't know if he'd ever agree to train. If he did though, I had a feeling not many people would be able to match up to him. I looked forward to the challenge of preparing for these incoming aliens, even if we were a little behind everyone else power wise.

"You two should try and relax, it's going to be a hectic first few days before you get into the routine of it." Ah, routine the trademark of long days of training, just routine and repetition, the same things over and over, but to get us up to even Krillin's level, we'd have to go beyond just repetition.

Suddenly a thought popped in my head "Who are we going to train with?" I asked.

Krillin was going to answer, but Triono cut him off with a stern voice "Kami."

I then retorted by asking, "Who's Kami?" the whole time wondering how Triono knew that, probably through the link he and Krillin had made.

Triono turned to me, arms crossed, a firm look on his face "He's the guardian of their, of our, earth. Kind of like god, except here they know he isn't all-powerful, now and days his only job is to train warriors like us for the battle ahead."

"That's right," Krillin continued "he was originally a sort of Z-warrior, he helped us fight against Frieza, afterwards, he went with the rest of his species to their new home world, when our Kami fused with a warrior named Piccolo, we called on him to come and be the next Kami of earth."

"Ok, so how long will we train under him?" I asked.

"Probably until they arrive at earth. You'll probably gravitron train for a while, I don't know how well your bodies will be able to stand up against the higher settings, but if we prepare you well enough, you should do fine." I didn't fully understand what he meant, but I kept my mouth shut.

Suddenly I was getting very tired, so I through myself into one of the chairs closed my eyes and relaxed. I tried replaying the day's events in my head, but I couldn't, the order was all screwed up, so I ditched the idea and picture Seana again. I was instantly calm, and for several minutes I just sat there, her face a vigilant reminder of what I was doing on this ship, hell, in this dimension.

Krillin suddenly snapped me out of my serenity, calling for seatbelts on all seats to be activated, suddenly my restraints wrapped themselves around me, and I opened my eyes, Earth, a brand new one, with a number of different land masses, took up the whole front view, and again my breath was taken away. This Earth was unlike mine, there was virtually no hint of pollution or anything like that, just the greens, blues and whites it was supposed to be, not a hint of gray.

"We're going in!" Krillin exclaimed, and no sooner did flames begin to dance across the front window, and in just a few seconds, we were covered in flames, doing a nosedive through the atmosphere. The ship remained cool even as we passed through the intense, metal smelting heat of the Earth's atmosphere. The flames now took up the entire view, and the inside of the ship was tinted red from the flames, and I was sure we'd blow up. Technology proved me wrong though, and in just a while we were clear of the intense heat, and coming down towards earth at a suicidal speed.

"Can't you slow this thing down?" I yelled to Krillin over the roaring of the engines, which were now struggling against gravity. Krillin tried saying something but I couldn't hear him. We continued going full speed towards the earth, and a little piece of green, an island towards the top of the planet, was suddenly becoming very big in the front window. I asked again "We gonna slow down anytime soon?"

No sooner did I yell it out then we began to slow down, but there was no time for just slowing down, we had to stop now, the island was all I could see, and the ground couldn't have been more than five kilometers down, and we were still moving at 500 m.p.h. I didn't think we'd survive the crash landing. One time I'd been on a ride at a carnival with Seana, where you rise about 200 feet and then come plummeting to the ground just to be stopped a few feet from the ground, she was screaming so loud I got scared, I still had a bit of a scar where she dug her nails into my hand. Anyways that landing reminded me so much of that ride I almost pissed my pants, I could've sworn we weren't more than five feet from the ground when we slowed to a crawl and then silently touched down on the ground.

My seatbelt came off, and then I took another deep breath (I seemed to be having a lot of them), before I got up and headed for the doorway. Triono and Krillin quickly came behind me, and Krillin moved to a control pad to the side, punched a few buttons, and then the doorway to a brand new life opened in front of me.


	4. Chapter 4

I don't own anything about dbz.(except for some Burger King toys, hehe)

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**I'm Back! Sorry about the long wait. I would like some reviews from all those people who are reading my story. it makes me feel like i'm not wasting my time here. this is from krillin.**

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Chapter 4

Well, it was going to be a big day for my two recruits, and this would probably decide if they could walk the walk or not. I was sure they'd be able to take the training, well Cris at least, but how long they'd last without getting homesick was beyond me, I just hoped they'd make it. They were extremely young, and while I doubted Triono had many roots or family members in his dimension, Cris probably had tons, and ripping him apart from them may have had a bigger impact than he imagined. But what was done was done; I doubt we would make it back to the rift in time to send him back, so he was here for at least a while.

All three of us stepped out of the pod as the walkway ahead of us lowered itself slowly to the ground. The greenery of my Earth was a sight for sore eyes after having to look at nothing but the barren wastelands Triono and Cris called home. I turned to both of them, and they both stood awe-struck, looking into the rich grass and clear blue sky that I knew so well. I took in a breath of invigorating air, and in a second the dirty, crusted feeling I'd had since arriving on Cris and Triono's Earth was gone. There was freshness, a sort of renewing factor on my planet that Cris and Triono's lacked.

The two of them really amazed me; I was still having trouble believing that they were so powerful. Triono was 13 and yet, he was more powerful than Goku at his age. Sure he wasn't as strong as Gohan was, but that was just because he hadn't been properly trained. I was even more astounded though, at how much Triono looked like Goku. The resemblance was un-canny, everything from the beefy arms to the spiky black hair to the oh so familiar facial features. I didn't know if he was a full saiyan or not, even after reading his memories because seriously he didn't know himself. I'd seen everything he'd gone through, and I'd felt sorry for him, he'd been through stuff Cris didn't even know about, like his mom, who'd come up in his memories very often.

Now I was sure that Triono was capable of becoming a formidable warrior, but he'd have to get over his fear, or maybe hatred of training. Kami wouldn't take it easy on him, and I couldn't have him buckle, he'd be the only super saiyan against the invaders if it came down to an all-out brawl.

"So where are we going to now?" Cris asked through squinting eyes, as the sun came pounding on us from high above. I was just about to answer by flying off with them in tow to sky tower when I became aware of a very powerful force not a kilometer to our left. I instantly recognized it, Nacran. Shit, we didn't need this now; I couldn't take him alone, much less with two potential hostages with me. Sure enough he was coming towards us, and I barely saw him before he touched down in front of us.

I sensed the tension from my pair of newbies, and I'm sure they could sense mine. My thought was confirmed when Cris fell into his fighting stance facing Nacran. Triono either realized Nacran was too strong for them, or he didn't want a fight right then, which I found hard to believe, he must've taken memories of Nacran from my mind when we linked.

"What you got here?" The big brute ahead asked in that stupid western accent, peering around me and looking over Cris first then Triono. I couldn't let him have them, Triono was still corruptible, and I didn't want to lose Cris fighting a foe way more powerful than him. I knew what this was going to come down to already, the destructo disc. I began gathering a bit of the energy on my arm so it was ready for a quick destructo disc.

"Just leave now Nacran, I don't have time to deal with you right now." I continued garnering the energy I'd need, but it'd be a while if I wanted to get in the necessary energy without him noticing.

"You mean you don't have time to die?" This caused even Triono to tense up to my left. "I just wanna know what you got here, new recruits no doubt. Eh?" He asked rhetorically "You can't beat us don't you realize that yet?"

It was then that Triono decided to open his mouth "Not only will we beat you, we'll beat your whole stinking army." I really wish he hadn't done that. Cris stood behind me dumb-founded, he didn't know that Nacran was the head of the scouting team that had found out about the dragon balls for the invaders, he didn't know that Nacran's power level was rated as high as six hundred thousand on the higher-end scouters, and he sure didn't know that I'd barely survived my last encounter with him.

Nacran looked to Triono, and then replied to me "Lippy workforce you got here." He then took a few steps towards Triono, and Cris quickly jumped to his right, getting behind Nacran and creating a pincer between him and Triono. I was about to screw stealth and just power up my destructo disc, but then Nacran took matters into his own hands.

"Maybe it's time I should show them how to give some respect." He raised his right hand and before either Cris or I could do anything, he fired a small ki blast from his palm straight towards Triono. The green blast hit Triono at full force, shearing through his body like it was paper, and in less than a second, Triono had a hole roughly the size of a fist straight through his torso. He fell to the ground like a ton of bricks, blood gushing out at exponential rates.

"Noooooooooo!" A horrified scream came away from the main action. I realized it was Cris, who was trying his very best not to explode in anger. This surprised me more than a little, even in Triono's memories they'd been nothing more than rivals, but maybe Cris was more worried about Triono than he let on, who knew.

Cris then did something I never expected. He brought his hands back to his hip and began charging his ki, almost screaming out "Ka-----" I had an idea of where this was going "me-------" I then realized he was going for a Kamehameha, god knows where he learnt it. Nacran turned to face Cris, staring at the boiling human fighter. It was all the chance I needed. I cleared my mind, paused and with one great push, zanzokened five metres behind Nacran. I raised my hand, palm outstretched and began preparing one slick, deadly destructo disc.

"Ha-----me----" Cris continued, concentrating his ki with all his effort. Nacran remained focused on Cris, as the burly alien's scouter began beeping wildly, obviously Cris could raise his power level by concentrating his energy. My destructo disc was now complete, hanging above my head, ready to go. "Ha!" Cris screamed out at the top of his lungs as he let his ki blast loose on Nacran.

Sure enough the dark skinned attacker easily sent the blast to the side, as Cris stood exasperated. It was the opening I needed though, and quickly launched my attack. It was on Nacran before he could even turn to face it. It sliced through his armor, skin, and then cracking through his middle torso. Blood sprayed everywhere, but it didn't stop Cris from jumping to the side of the destructo disc, as it continued its torrent straight onwards towards the hillside. Eventually it'd run out of energy and disintegrate.

Nacran made no death scream, just a few gurgles before death claimed him. Triono was slightly less quiet. He screamed his head off, as Cris and I both ran to him. We bent over him, but there was nothing we could do, he was dying. Blood had already soaked into the ground, replaced by fresh stuff from Triono's saiyan heart. "Help me, oh please dear god help me!" He yelled, agony and fear in his heart.

I passed my hand over his head to dampen his pain receptors, better than any kind of painkiller we had. He quieted somewhat, but he still clasped onto Cris shoulder as blood began coughing itself up from his throat. When he'd finally cleared enough of the liquid from his mouth to speak again he said only one thing "I'm gonna see her again Cris, dear god, I can't wait to see her again." He then went limp, and his head drooped back.

I heard Cris sobbing, as he set Triono's body to the ground and then in disgust vomited off to the side. It struck something inside of me, maybe it was because Triono looked so much like Goku, but something hit me, and suddenly I just wanted to go back to life with 18, just settle down again, and not care about anything, just enjoy my time in the other dimension with Gohan, Yamcha, Tien and Chao-zu. I suddenly longed for the carefree days long since past. The dragon balls could not ensure happiness, especially not for souls that had witnessed as much as mine had.

I rose from the ground, and stepped over the mess that had been Triono, and pulled Cris up from where he was weeping. His eyes were red and teary, his face was grim and I could only find one way to consolidate him. "We'll wish him back, don't worry."

"What are you talking about?" He replied a few seconds later.

"Remember those dragon balls that I told you about, the ones that the aliens are coming for?" I paused, not long enough to let him answer, but long enough to let the question sink in "They can bring people back from the dead."

He just looked at me with an odd face, like he was seeing if I was lying or not, when he finally realized I was telling the truth, he hiccupped a little, and then nodded. I took my hands off him and let him collect himself. After a while he asked, "Who was that guy who attacked us?" And pointed to one half of the body of Nacran."His name was Nacran, he was part of the search party that discovered the dragon balls power. He was the captain actually, he was even more powerful than me." Cris nodded absent-mindedly, and then his jaw dropped.

"Triono! His body, it's gone!" He exclaimed as he pointed behind me. I turned and sure enough Triono's body was gone, just a blood-soaked patch of grass where it should have been.

"Kami." I thought out loud.

"Where did he take his body? And how did he move so fast we didn't even see him."

I smirked at his innocence slightly, he really had no idea what he was talking about, ah well, we all had to learn sometimes. "He took his body to the check-in station in the other dimension. Only his body will be completely healed and fighting fit. There he'll probably go to King Kai's place and train with him, if King Yemma lets him that is. Oh and he didn't come here at all, he takes the souls and bodies of people from this dimension every day, with just a thought."

I could tell I'd gone right over his head so before he could ask anything I said "Don't worry, you can find out everything very soon. In-fact let's go right now to……" I was going to say Master Roshi's house where he could relax and read up on the history, but then I remembered him pulling off the Kamehameha and instead I asked, "where did you learn the Kamehameha?"

He seemed a bit taken aback by the sudden question, but slowly answered, "I read about it from some ancient Chinese scrolls. I perfected it two years ago."

I didn't know who or what the Chinese were, but if they knew about the Kamehameha they must've been some sorts of warriors. "The person who created it here goes by the name Kame-sennin. He taught it to Goku, Yamcha and I." He again appeared to not know what I was talking about, so I explained in some detail. "He trained Goku, Yamcha and I when we were kids, about Triono's age. He's the main reason Goku went on to become the most powerful being in the universe. The Kamehameha was Goku's most powerful move throughout his whole life, because it's an extension of one's own ki power." He appeared to catch on a bit better, so I continued my previous thought. "Anyways, let's get going to his house right now, you can read up on the history of the dimension from there, and you can rest up before your training with Kami."

Cris nodded, and then with one final glance at the scene of Triono's death, he gave me the go ahead nod. I covered both of us in my aura, and then shot up into the sky, off to the southeast and my old stomping grounds.


	5. Chapter 5

I don't own anything about dbz.(except for some Burger King toys, hehe)

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**Cris **

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Chapter 5

The next few days were probably the only relaxing ones I had the entire time I was in that dimension. After Krillin took to me to Master Roshi's house in the far east, he gave me hordes of books and data pads to read about the history of the Z warriors and such.

I tried to absorb as much of the information as I could, the pieces about Goku and the rest, about the battle against Vegeta, about the super saiyans, about both versions of Trunks (the past and the present versions), about Gohan and his classic battle with Cell, about Goku being turned back into a child by Pilaf, and then finally absorbing the dragon balls into himself. I don't think I ever read so much in my life, but within five days I'd digested the entire history of the dragon balls and began to understand some very important concepts.

Like who we were going to fight for one. The aliens coming after the dragon balls were called the Caprians, but really there were too many races to name within the ranks of the oncoming enemy. I didn't want to even think about how powerful their leader, General Yoorabit was; he'd been seen destroying solar systems for fun before heading towards earth. Three years didn't seem like enough time to prepare for the looming assault. Ah, thanks to the miracle of deep space posts and satellite images, we even knew how the assault was coming, in three waves.

The first wave would arrive in a little under three years, and consisted of mostly grunts and supplies. Their job would be to soften up the defences of the planet, and set up base camps for the second wave. The second leg of the attack would consist of the bulk of the army. It would have the more powerful elite troops, and would probably be doing most of the fighting. It would arrive two months after the first wave. The last wave was really just General Yoorabit and his elite cadre of guards.

Yoorabit himself was Caprian, but most of his cronies were of different species. Almost all of them were mutants, genetically engineered or enhanced to be better fighters. The universe had never seen such a large number of super powered fighters; no doubt we had our work cut out for us.

Ah, the we aspect of things. There was a we, that much was sure. Six humans (including me), one Namek, and one saiyan. That's right a saiyan. Of all my allies' stories, Phoenix's was the most intriguing.

He was originally a Tyran, a race of small, weak, psionically-gifted and brilliant people. They all had the ability to alter people's thoughts, read minds, and even move small objects with their mind. Phoenix's real name was Younthat Katat, and was one of the most powerful Tyranese in the universe. His amazing psychic and psionic powers allowed him to bring Tyran up to a universal economic power through shrewd negotiations and dealings. He was on his way to Earth to see if there was any way he could aid the Earth warriors against the incoming threat, when he passed through the rubble of the old planet Vegeta, the home of the saiyan race.

It's said in old tales that when a warrior dies, a piece of his soul goes back home. Most believe this is just a legend, but Phoenix proved them all wrong. Katat's ship crashed into some of the debris of the planet, crippling both Katat and his ship. Holding onto life with a very thing thread, he used his powerful mind to attract what he thought was remnant ki energy in an attempt to replenish his strength enough to repair his ship. In actuality though, he garnered the spirits of all those dead saiyans. Something happened when all those spectres attached themselves to Katat. He recalls a brilliant flash, and then fire covering his body before slipping into unconsciousness.

Spectators from the nearby planet of Kafatar back his story up, saying that a bright flare torched the sky from far away. When Katat came to, he had changed completely. That of a saiyans had replaced his body, right down to his genetic make-up. He claimed to have been reborn (hence the name Phoenix), and that he had the memories of all those saiyans, whether it was true or not was known only to him, but when he spoke, his words resembled those of a sage, so many assumed he told the truth.

Me, I hadn't met him yet, so I didn't want to make any rash judgements, but his story did intrigue me. The rest of the group went like this: Karnai, the namek warrior Krillin had originally gone to see (it was believed he was a direct descendant of Piccolo, but no one knows for sure even though he seemed to look a lot like him), Arsenia, a human who was raised in the streets of the western capitol, Gideon, a bulky black skinned human, Yukio, a lanky and hard-nosed human, and Kennard another human who was the training partner of Yukio. Then there was Nikita, the only woman recruited by Krillin and Kami; she wasn't as strong as the rest of them, but was nearly four years younger than any of them. She was 15 like me, and a bit closer to my power level, near 1000. She had a bit of a Son Gohan aspect to her though, and when she was pissed, she could quadruple her power in a second.

None of them had trained under anyone except Kami their whole lives. I was sort of amazed when I found out about this. None of them had walked down the path Goku had, training under Master Roshi first. I didn't understand this; during my time with him he'd treated me like a king. He'd given me tons of room in which to recover in, a room with a beautiful view of the ocean and sky, and food more delicious than anything I'd ever had before. For five days, he gave me anything I wanted, with no questions, and I felt kind of sorry for him, since all his friends had long since passed away from old age (which I found out he was immune to). It was after I had dissected and re-organized the history of the planet in my head did I finally go up to Master Roshi on the evening of the fifth day. It was 8:30, I remember looking at the clock on the wall and sweating.

There were butterflies in my stomach; he hadn't spoken more than two words to me in a row since coming to his house. I took in a deep breath as I stepped in-between him and the T.V. Looking back, that may not have been the best move. As I blocked off his vision, he looked up at me and squinted through his sunglasses. Then he simply asked me "Yes?"

I was forced to take another deep breath, I'd faced death on a platter before, and I was afraid of this rickety old man, didn't know where that came from. "I'd like to train under you Master Roshi." I paused as an un-timely lump formed in my throat. I cleared it with a cough and continued, "If it isn't too much of a bother."

He looked me up and down, and then slowly, with the creaking of a thousand bones, got up from the sofa, and nodded. He then walked off to his left, to the open space beside the sofa. I followed him a few steps, and then he stopped, turned to me, and told me flatly. "Do five hundred push-up's, five hundred squats, and a thousand sit-ups."

Direct, but no doubt effective, I got down to it. I did the sit-ups first, breezing through them fairly quickly, then moved onto the squats, then after about 20 minutes, got to the push-ups. The whole time, Roshi had sat down on a chair and read some sort of a magazine. Afterwards, I was slightly worse for wear, but couldn't complain, it was a bit more than I was used to doing every morning, but not all that hard. When I was done, Roshi looked up from his reading material and calmly asked, "Done?"

I was breathing heavily and instead of answering just nodded. He got up from the chair and moved to a row of turtle shells that stood on the chair. He examined each of them carefully, moving from one to the next, each progressively bigger, before finally "settling" on one of the larger ones. He picked it from the rack on the wall, and then turned to me and flung it at me. I caught it easily, but was amazed at its weight. For something of its size, it must've weighed 40 pounds. He then said, "Go ahead, and put it on."

I turned it around, and found straps around the hollow side of the shell. Assuming correctly, I slung the shell over my back, and attached three straps together over my torso, one over my waist, one under my pectorals, and one by my neck. It felt kind of odd to be carrying an extra forty pounds on my back, but it wasn't hard or anything. The shell reached from the base of my neck to right above my butt. Roshi then lazily went back to his chair, picked up his magazine, and then said, "Now do it again."

I wasn't sure what he meant, but I figured he meant the exercises. I started over again, doing them in the same order. It was much harder to do the second time; the extra weight posed a great problem. Un-like last time, I had trouble in the home stretch. The last fifth of all the exercises was torture, my legs, arms, chest, and abs all burned by the time I was finished, I hadn't felt like that for a while, it'd been nearly two weeks since I'd trained all out.

I finished though, even if it was almost 45 minutes later. He'd finished the magazine, and was almost done another one by the time I was finished. I was sweating profusely, and was gasping for oxygen, and he just calmly asked, "Done?" again.

I nodded, and swallowed saliva down a dry throat. Roshi got up again and went on to look over his shells again, moved to the absolute biggest one and picked it up then hurled it at me. I barely managed to catch it, not because of its weight, but because my arms were already burning up. This much bigger one must've weighed 65 or 70 pounds. I took off the old shell and place it carefully off to the side before attaching the new shell securely on my back. This one weighed me down, hell it was almost half my weight, and I found it hard to keep my balance after already having my legs burning.

He then said the one sentence I'd feared. "Now do it again." I obliged, and set down to do the exercises. Through about halfway of each of the exercises, I slowed to a crawl's pace, barely getting through the motions. The last hundred push-ups were the hardest; sweat dripped down my forehead and created a pool in the carpet underneath me. I didn't know if I would finish, but somehow I did.

On the last push-up I collapsed into a heap on the floor. It must've been nearly an hour and a half since I started the third set, and air eluded me at that moment, but that didn't stop me from trying to capture some anyways. My entire body burned, the muscles refusing to give any more. I could sense Roshi peeking out at me from behind another magazine, and asked, "Done?"

I managed to answer in a hoarse voice "Yes."

"Good. Then that shell shall be your training shell. Whenever you aren't sleeping, you'll be wearing that shell on your back." I nodded, and managed to get up from the now sweat-stunk ground without using my arms, then climbed slowly up the stairs to my bed. It was almost 11 o'clock and I had a feeling I was going to need as much sleep as I could get. "I'll tell Krillin you've decided to train under me for the time being." I just nodded, and continued climbing up the stairs, trudging along. Boy, was this going to be fun.


	6. Chapter 6

I don't own anything about dbz.(except for some Burger King toys, hehe)

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**Roshi**

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Chapter 6

In the five months I'd been training Cris, the few hairs that had grown back on my head had flaked off yet again. I didn't think that training the young boy would've been such a difficult task, and in most ways it wasn't. I rarely had to help him with anything, except when I was teaching him a new technique. Other than that he did mostly his own training, but with my own special touch.

I was amazed at how hard he worked every single day. He never once yielded to the strain I was putting on him. I still remember that day he told me he wanted to train under me. I'd never started a student at that high a number of exercises, and never with a shell that heavy. I had trouble believing my eyes when I saw him finish that last push-up. There was no quit in the boy, a trait that would serve him well in the future.

I loved the time we spent together, it was great having another person to talk to besides turtle, to have someone to compete with for the bathroom in the morning, to laugh at funny TV shows with. I missed my friends, they were all in the other dimension, living it as best they could there. I respected Cris for what he was trying to do, but he would get better training from Kami up in sky tower, I knew this, and I think deep down he did too.

I only wish I could keep up with him, he was going at amazing speeds. In just five months, he'd mastered every move in my repertoire (save one). Bukujutsu, Renzoku, Finger Beams, and most recently, Zanzoken. That one amazed me the most, he was able to Zanzoken nearly fifty metres, with his shell on, and he could do it several times over before needing a rest. Still through all his extensive training he never took a day off, never gave way to the burning through his body that I knew he must've been feeling. He was anxious to learn another technique, but anything I could teach him he probably wouldn't use, there was only one move that he needed to know, and Krillin had said he already knew it.

He was outside practicing his basic physical attacks when the idea came to me. I'd been a while since I'd used, or even given one out, but the time seemed right for another one to be used. I went out back to where Cris wouldn't be able to hear me over the sounds of the ocean, and I yelled out "Nimbus!"

I waited for a few seconds before the yellow cloud came from the north. It rushed towards me, and then came to a sudden halt right in front of me. I looked over the cloud, which many years ago would've belonged to Goku. I remembered with a smile the look on Goku's face when I gave him that cloud, he was ecstatic, that look was the one I'd always remember about Goku, not him as a super saiyan, not him against Vegeta, but him as a boy when I gave him his present.

I bent over nimbus, and whispered into it. "You have a new master Nimbus." I began. "His name is Cris, he is over the house training right now." I continued. "You will obey him until he is no more. Please allow him to use your services, he has a heart as pure as any." The Nimbus turned a deep shade of blue, meaning he recognized his new master and agreed with me on his purity.

"Come then." I said as I stood to my full height and began walking around the house with Nimbus in tow. When I reached the corner nearest Cris, I told the Nimbus to wait where Cris couldn't see him. It obeyed and I continued on, sure enough Cris was hard at work, throwing punches, kicks, and various other attacks at his air-based opponent with amazing speed. His back was turned and he didn't see me, so I cleared my throat deeply.

That got his attention, and he turned to face me, then bowed out of respect. "Yes Master Roshi?" He asked in a tiny voice.

"I have something for you, Cris." He titled his head and looked at me, not knowing if I was serious.

"What is it?" He asked hesitantly.

I motioned for the Nimbus to come over, and it obeyed, slowly creeping out of the shade of the cover, and into the sunlight. Cris' eyes went wide, his jaw dropped, the air rushed out of his body, as he stared at the slowly moving cloud. After a while he looked straight at me, with the look.

I don't remember much else of that day except for that look. It was nearly identical to the one Goku gave me so many years ago. I grinned so wide I thought I'd be like that permanently as Cris hopped onto the cloud for the first time and said the magic words. "Nimbus, let's go!"

They shot off into the distance, Cris' hair blowing in the wind, his laughter could be heard for miles on end. I couldn't help but stare at the trail of yellow, even as he went off into the distance, I continued to stare, not caring for anything but the joy on his face. Another image burned into my mind, another memorable moment to cherish.

I continued to stare out into the sea for hours, not caring when he was going to come back. For the longest time all my worries, all my hardships, all the stuff I'd been through in my life didn't seem to matter half as much as the look on Cris' face. I was later told I had that stupid grin on my face for a whole week.


	7. Chapter 7

I don't own anything about dbz.(except for some Burger King toys, hehe)

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This is from **Cris. Read on!**

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Chapter 7

I thought I'd known the meaning of challenge, but after six months of training under Master Roshi, I considered re-writing it's definition in the dictionary.

To start it off, was the morning. Waking up at 4:30 a.m. every single morning, the sun not even rising on the horizon, no birds or blue sky to great you when you wake up.

To start every day, I would put on my training clothes, strap on my shell, and then go downstairs to begin training. Every training day began the same, the three main exercises that he'd made me do when I started training under him, only done several times over. Every week I trained under him, he added 100 more push ups and squats, and 200 sit-ups to my wake-up routine. At the end of six months, I was up to 3000 push-ups/squats and twice as many sit-ups every single morning. That was just getting started though. After breakfast, which was immediately after the morning "stretch", I went outside and practiced the most basic punches, kicks, and blocks over and over again for two hours. I went full speed of course, not stopping for anything, even exhaustion, which was usually settling in right about then.

By the time that was over, my entire body felt ready to give in, I couldn't feel my muscles or my bones anymore. Luckily I had a small rest period (1 minute) followed by practicing my ki attacks. Even though I knew I'd almost reached my maximum potential under Master Roshi, he still hadn't taught me the Kamehameha, so I couldn't practice it during that hour-long period. He'd taught me some very handy techniques though, such as Bukujutsu, the ability to fly by using my ki energy (I hadn't been able to master my mind like that before), and Zanzoken, or the "blur" affect. Basically it allowed me to blur out of view and re-appear a small distance away, in a blink of an eye. This one I'd tried to perfect the most, as I knew speed was my greatest ally. He'd also taught me how to control all my other various attacks far better than before, and I was sincerely grateful.

After my ki attacks, I stretched my entire body. I was far more flexible than before I came under his tutelage. I could do the splits easily, and I could twist my torso and other appendages into forms I never knew I could before. After an hour of stretching, I worked out, doing two sets in a weight room in the basement of the Turtle-house. I asked Roshi once why he didn't want me to use the gym more often, he said his training methods were engineered more towards speed than strength. I agreed, but I felt like I was seriously lacking strength now, if I came up against Triono now, he'd probably be twice as strong as me.

Anyways, after that it was time for dinner. I commented once on why we didn't have lunch, he said that we didn't need it, and I couldn't agree more. I was never hungry, in-fact, I was full more often than not, Roshi's cooking was amazing, and he often cooked enough to feed a small country. Of course there were no small countries here, just cities with anywhere between 10,000 and 2 million people living in them.

After supper was a small nap, about half an hour. He woke me up at 1:30 every afternoon and then we meditated. This was the biggest challenge for me, I could deal with all the physical stress, but trying to get me to concentrate on becoming one with the surrounding life was near impossible for me. I didn't know if there was something wrong with me or no, but I was determined to try and do it, if only to make Master Roshi happy.

After an hour and a half of meditation, he taught me new things for an hour. Sometimes this consisted of something as simple as corrected my posture on a punch, to something as big as a new technique. This was the hour I paid the most attention to, and the only one in which he really interacted with me in any big way.

After this was close combat training time. He must've taught me eighty ways to break almost every bone in someone's body by the time I was done training under him. We did that for an hour, and then at 5:00 I was on my own. Three hours each day I had all to myself. True enough I spent most of it training anyways, but occasionally I took Nimbus to the city and bought some food or supplies for the house.

At 8:00 it was time to go to sleep, and then the next day start it all over again. For six months I'd gone on like that, day after excruciating day, every day learning something new about my limits, and each time I felt I couldn't push on any longer, I did. The results were showing though, that much was sure, I felt a lot more powerful than ever before, and one day I purchased a scouter (seems Capsule Corp. had begun mass producing the things) and checked my power level in a mirror. It said 710 in the read-out, but I felt that was a bit low, half a year and I'd only doubled my strength plus change? That didn't sound right, but I figured I must've been suppressing my true power.

No matter, I was a lot more confident, but I still wondered if Roshi was ever going to even try to teach me the Kamehameha. Every night while he was inside watching TV, I practiced it. It was by far my most powerful move, but I still wasn't up there with the rest of my newfound Z Warrior team-mates, all of which I still had to meet. I was growing anxious that they were only getting stronger and I wasn't progressing as fast as the rest of them by training under Master Roshi.

I was just considering telling Master Roshi that I was grateful for his training, but was ready to move on one day, when he turned to me after we finished meditating and said "Do you think you are ready to learn it?"

I was shocked and taken aback by the question, I racked my brain to come up with what he meant, but for some reason the answer eluded me and I didn't reply. He continued on instead "Well? The Kamehameha is a powerful manuever, do you think your ready?"

I just nodded, I was un-able to speak, it was like my throat had seized up. "All right then." He said, rising from the ground as I did the same "Let's go."

He walked slowly past me, and then went on into the house. I followed, walking slowly, my shell bounced slightly on my back, so I loosened and then tightened the straps.

We walked for what seemed like an eternity, downstairs, to the gym room. I helped him clear some room so we could have ample space for the teaching of the move. When we were done that, he turned to me and told me to stand across from him.

We stood at least 10 metres away from each other, both pairs of eyes fixated on the other, for a good ten seconds before he broke the tension. "Fire away." Was all he said.

I stood dumb-founded, not knowing what he meant, and then suddenly I realized he wanted me to shoot my Kamehameha at him. "You sure?" I asked, I knew I was way more powerful than Master Roshi, and if it came down to a match of strength, it was no contest.

"Show me what you got." He said as he proceeded to fall back into his Kamehameha pose. I was still considering whether to do it or not, when he suddenly gave me no choice. "Ka----" he said, as a small ball of yellow energy began forming in his cupped hands "me---" he continued.

I guess I didn't have an option not to. "Ka---" I said, and also brought my hands to my hips, preparing the attack. "me----" I continued.

"hame-----" Roshi bellowed, his aura becoming more and more powerful.

"hame-----" I echoed, not knowing if he was going to go through with it or not. We both powered up our Kamehameha's to their full extent (which took a few seconds) and then in unison we both screamed out "HA!"

I whipped out my palms, and shoved the built up river of ki energy from them. The blue stream of energy met Master Roshi's yellow beam in the center of the room. The force was amazing, weights began flying around, and the previously dim room was now ablaze with colour and light.

At first I didn't use my full strength, as I was afraid of injuring my mentor. Soon though I was the one fearing for my life. I pushed with all my strength through my beam, but no matter how much effort I pressed into it, it just wasn't enough. I began sweating beads as I realized Roshi's beam was over-powering my own, my arms, already tired from a day of training, were beginning to give way, and after only 20 seconds of contact, Roshi over-powered me.

I tried dodging the attack at the last second, but it was no use, the yellow beam struck me at full force, sending me flying into the wall. I cracked the wooden wall, but didn't break it, my shell had cushioned the wall from the blow. My back howled in agony, and I fell to the ground, my whole body felt like it was on fire. I tried pushing myself up, but my arms refused to co-operate, they felt like rubber.

Suddenly as I was trying to get up, I realised I was smoking; literally, I could smell myself, that's how bad it was. Master Roshi was to me in an instant, and with his aid I managed to get up. "How.." I began, pausing to take a deep breath "how, did … you do that?"

He studied me for a second, and then said, "That, is the true power of the Kamehameha."

I must've given him a weird look because he never laughed so hard when I was around afterwards. "What do you mean?" I asked.

He took a deep breath, and I knew I was in for a long explanation. "The only thing that separated Goku from any of his partners when he trained under me," He began "and later separated him from Vegeta, was his Kamehameha. He and I are the only ones who reach the full power of the Kamehameha."

"How?" I asked, my head wild with ideas.

Master Roshi just tapped his bald head, and said "It's the mind-set of the user. They must be at peace with all things around them but most importantly with themselves, for it is their own power than fuels the fire of the Kamehameha."

With that, Master Roshi walked off, not caring to elaborate any more I guess. So there was something else to the Kamehameha, a connection to nature, and oneself that only two people had ever truly mastered. This, was going to be a challenge indeed.


	8. Chapter 8

I don't own anything about dbz.(except for some Burger King toys, hehe)

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**if you have any questions or are confused by my writing style, please put it in the review. Thank you.**

**Triono. **

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Chapter 8 

If I was forced to choose one, very adequate, word to describe snake way it would be this: Long. I'd been running non-stop for seven months now, and it seemed like there was no end to the gray, scaly road. I'd long since grown sick of the yellow clouds, the red and pink sky, and the same monotonous patterns in the road.

I'd made a sort of game, seeing which pattern (a pattern typically stretched over a mile) repeated itself the most through the course of the path. There was the twist (just a curve that bent this way then that over and over), there was the loop (a literal loop, which I had to fly through), there was the valley (a series of hills and dips that often bent 100 meters in either direction), and there was the straight (what do you think that was?).

Before I'd left for King Kai's, King Yemma had taught me how to fly, and given me supplies to take on my long journey. He even gave me two pieces of his special fruit, which was supposed to keep me full for three months, I'd tested it, and sure enough, six months after eating both pieces, I started to get hungry. I'd finished all the other food he'd packed with me soon after, and I hadn't had a meal in nearly two days.

Still I ran for all I was worth, I don't know what fuelled me, but whatever it was wouldn't let my legs stop moving. I'd stopped discerning between day and night long ago, as I was far too deprived of sleep to care.

There was one thing I did recognize as I was running though, the end. It came to me like I was in a dream, white and fuzzy out-line and all. I came up to it, still running full speed, and then about five meters before the very end; I slammed on the brakes and came to a screeching halt (literally).

I stood there, not knowing what to make of the dead end. I stared at the plank like tail end of the path, stared out along the horizon, stared down into hell, and still found nothing. For several minutes, my numb mind didn't quite figure out there was nothing there, and then it hit me.

I screamed in rage, I didn't have time for this, it'd taken me over half a year to reach the damn place, I'd gone through puberty on this damn path, and I didn't want to freaking come back empty-handed. I had to remind myself; that was if I was coming back. Until I proved myself to Kami, he wouldn't let them wish me back with the dragon balls.

I wasn't worried though; if I trained hard enough I'm sure they'd wish me back. And despite what Cris thought, I did train. If he only knew how many hours I'd spent in the loneliness of my apartment, trying to block out the hurt. The taunting, the loneliness, the suffering, everything that was associated with being me, I'd devoted entire days to trying to cut it off. I hadn't been training like Cris, but I hadn't been training, it was during those long hours of meditation that I developed the Tasaranko and Renzoku, moves which were more powerful than most of Cris' repertoire. No doubt Cris was slaving away, dumping his guts out every day, just to prepare for the Caprians.

As much as I hated training, for the time I was stuck on that damned tail, I wanted to take my frustration out on something, anything. Luckily before I exploded and ripped the damned trail apart, I spotted the planet. It was small, green, with what seemed like a road running across one of the axis. I figured that must be where King Kai was.

It looked like it was a good 200 meters away, and at a diagonal angle to the edge of the tail, reaching it wouldn't be a problem though. I crouched, tried to give my energy to my already tired legs, and then shot up from the gray tail.

Reaching the planet was no problem, landing softly on it was. I came crashing down onto the surface at a suicidal speed. Whatever yanked me to the ground was far too powerful for me to over-power. I crashed into the ground face-first, almost for sure breaking my nose and rattling my insides as well. Even as I lied on the ground, I still couldn't get up.

Then I realized there was nothing holding me down except the planet's own gravity. Try as I might, I couldn't get up from the grass, the gravity was just too intense. I did manage to move my hands so that they were at my sides, ready for me to try and push myself up. I realized it would take all my strength for it to work, so I took a deep relaxing breath, tried to ignore the immense weight crushing me, and then with one gigantic heave, pushed.

It took me five seconds and a hell of a lot of energy, but I managed to finally get to a position where I could place my arms under me and let my weight rest on them, so I was in a position like the apex of a push-up. Next I brought my leg from behind me and set it down under my sternum, allowing the bulk of my torso to balance on it. Finally I used that leg to push up to where I could stand.

I didn't so much achieve a stand as I did a strange squat. The weight on my body was enormous, but I managed to assume a sort of hunched over, legs spread position. Every muscle in my body was forced into action just to stand. I began to see the logic in this, if this was King Kai's training center, he'd make you super strong if you adapted to this gravity.

I looked up and began searching for the legendary master of martial arts. I didn't have to search very long; I managed to spot a small black form off to my left. My first instinct was of course to move towards him, but the gravity had something to say about that. I tried and tried, but the most I could get before tiring out was shifting my body to the form's direction. No sooner did I do that then the form moved off to my right. I was about to turn again, but I then realized my stupidity.

I took a deep breath and then yelled "Hey!"

The figure stopped in his tracks, objective met. He looked around, and I saw that it wasn't black after all; he just had a black robe on over an enormous body. I saw only part of his face, but what I did see bore a strong resemblance to that of a fish. It was blue, with two large black antennae sticking out from the top of his head, along with blue whisker like tentacles emitting from his face. I wasn't quite sure if that was King Kai, the legendary martial arts master, or one of his students, or possibly some sort of dummy.

No matter he'd heard me, and I intended to keep his attention. "Hey," I screamed at the top of my lungs "over here!"

He heard me more clearly this time, and I managed to drudge forward two steps, before needing to suck in more air. He slowly and calmly began walking towards me, the gravity seemed to have no effect on him; he was moving effortlessly.

In a few seconds he'd crossed the small horizon and was right in front of me. "Are you King Kai?" I asked through gasping breaths.

He just nodded in affirmation, and I wasted no time. "I'm here to receive martial arts training from you sir." I wouldn't usually show so much respect to an old guy like him, but if what King Yemma told me was true, he was amazingly powerful.

He looked me up and down, walked around my struggling body, examining me thoroughly. I felt like I was under a microscope, and with those sunglasses, I could see Kai looking like a scientist.

After he'd made a complete circle, he stared me straight in the face, and asked "Are you sure you're ready Triono?"

I wasn't surprised he knew my name, King Yemma told me King Kai knew almost everything, which I found a little hard to believe. "Yes, I have to be."

He raised his eyebrow, and studied me again with newfound interest. "The situation is that dire?"

From what I'd pulled from Krillin's mind, it was. "Yes, I have to get a lot stronger, in just two and a half years. And since I'm dead, I heard you're the best trainer in this dimension."

A big grin spread across his face, and he nodded slightly. "Well, I could train you…" He placed all the emphasis on could, meaning he didn't have to. I gave him the fiercest look I could under the circumstances, and he just continued on "but before I do…" God could he make this any more prolonged? "You have to pass one simple test."

I stared at him wide-eyed, fearing he was going to make me fight him or something, I could hardly move under this gravity; I was in no shape to fight him. Luckily he passed grace on me this time. "Try and make me laugh." He said with a grin the size of Kansas on his face.

Seemed simple enough, it'd be easier than beating Cris… right? I racked my brain, but at that present time my joke section was clocking zero. I had nothing, nada. I panicked, I'd never had time for jokes on Earth, in fact I never had anyone to tell me any.

King Kai looked at me through those sunglasses and I realized I was sweating heavily. I then made a conscious effort to calm my breath, clear my mind, and let the joke come to me. After what seemed like an eternity one popped in my head.

"Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?" It was corny, but I was coming up empty. He didn't respond so I continued, "He didn't have the guts!" I could've sworn there was drum-roll to a symbol smash somewhere in the background. At first there was nothing, but then a slight rocking of the shoulders, then King Kai turned around so I couldn't see his face. I thought I heard him giggling though, so I kept at it.

"Why is six afraid of seven?" He turned and gave me another huge grin, I was almost there "'cause seven eight nine."

He brought his hands up to his mouth to prevent me from finishing him off, but I could smell the sweet taste of victory, it was just on my fingertips. Now for the finishing blow. "Two men walked into a bar, and the third" I paused for dramatic reasons "he ducked!" I threw as much emphasis as I could onto the last part.

Sure enough, King Kai just couldn't hold it in any more; he exploded in laughter, better than a Molotov cocktail. He fell literally tipped over; I didn't think it was that funny, but just because of the absurdity of the situation, I smiled slightly.

I let him laugh for a few minutes before he finally collected himself. He was gasping for air and still giggling slightly when he finally talked to me again. "Ok, I guess I can train you."

I nodded, and then asked, "So what do I do first?"

He smiled broadly, and then replied by yelling out "Bubbles!" I looked around, not knowing if he meant a person or a bubble. It was neither; instead a small, brown, furry monkey trotted up to King Kai, staring intently with hollow, one-dotted eyes.

I stared back, fixated on the monkey for some un-known reason. King Kai broke my concentration however, stating, "Your first job is to catch bubbles."

I wasn't sure I heard him right, so I asked. "Catch him?"

King Kai nodded, and then it hit me. Under this gravity, if I could run as fast as a monkey, then when I left the gravity, I'd be a hell of a lot faster. I nodded in reply and then began my first attempt. I was barely able to step towards Bubbles before he squirted away, hiding behind King Kai.

Something struck Kai as funny, and he started laughing hysterically. I didn't get it, so I remained focused on Bubbles. I managed to step around King Kai and make a grab at the ape, but he shot away again, this time walking to a tree off in the distance. I set after him, barely managing a step a second. I got to the tree, but then he shot off to the other side. "Bubbles you damn fur-lump, get back here!" Of course he didn't obey, and I was forced to chase him again.

For some reason Cris popped into my head at that specific time. I thought that he'd probably have no trouble catching bubbles, strong as he was physically. I highly doubted I'd have time to meditate much training under King Kai, but I told myself to make a distinct effort to at least try.

With that mental note made, I trudged towards Bubbles yet again.


	9. Chapter 9

**i don't own DBZ

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**

Cris

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Chapter 9

I'd been waiting for quite a while now, and while I'd learned patience training under Master Roshi, even my newfound batch of the stuff was nearing its end. It'd been nearly a week since we'd put in the request for the Saibaman, why couldn't Capsule Corp. hurry their lazy asses up?

True, the reason for requesting the Saibaman must've seemed a little strange. Master Roshi wouldn't lie, and he put down on the application: To fight. He'd had to pull some strings to even get the submission looked at. The Saibaman were extremely dangerous and I suppose Capsule Corp. was right to be very picky about who it sold its merchandise to.

A few years after Goku went missing, a human colony found hordes of Saibaman seeds, and they took a few of them back to earth for study. Since then, Capsule Corp. outbid the remnants of Red Ribbon to own the rights to the Saibamen, and began mass-producing them. They'd learned how to control how powerful the Saibaman would be; they could create ones with power levels any where from 200 to 2000.

Roshi and I had put in a request for one with a power level of 1000, not quite as strong as the one's the Z warriors faced on earth so many years ago, but close enough.

Finally it arrived late at night on Friday of the last week of my eighth month in this dimension. Roshi called me downstairs from my room where I'd been reading on some of Goku's old battles, and when I came down, he held a big box in his skinny arms labelled "Highly Dangerous" "Handle With Care".

I smiled widely, and he said "Make sure you get a good sleep tonight, tomorrow might be a long day."

I went right back to my room with all the intentions to go sleep, but I just couldn't, I felt like a giddy kid the night before Christmas. I knew the battle the next day would be brutal, but I felt certain I could take it.

I'd told Master Roshi that I just wanted to fight the Saibaman to gauge my abilities, but I had an ulterior motive. I believed that I performed my best when everything was on the line, and in the two months I'd been trying, I still couldn't master the full power of the Kamehameha. I felt that if my life were on the line, I would be pushed far enough to do it.

I knew I needed sleep, but it didn't come, even after Master Roshi went to bed, I lied fully awake. I tried everything, but I just couldn't relax. Then an idea came to me.

I reached under my wooden bed, feeling around before my hand came on it. I snatched it up and flicked on a light switch using my mind (one of the few tricks I learned during meditation). I hadn't looked at her picture in almost a month, but I still longed to be with her.

The picture was now torn and tattered, bent around the edges, and the image itself fading off slightly. Still I could never forget her face; it was burned into my mind. Whenever I felt like giving into the tired arms or the fear of death, I just recalled that picture in my mind. I brushed my hand against the portrait, and suddenly I was completely calm. I stared at the picture for another few seconds then put it back in its place on the floor, flicked off the light again and went to sleep.

The next morning Master Roshi let me sleep in an extra hour, no doubt he knew I'd need all the rest I could get. As soon as I was awake I went downstairs and was about to begin my morning exercises but he stopped me, saying I'd need all the energy I could save. I just agreed, but there was something strange about how he said it.

After we ate breakfast, he climbed on-board Nimbus with me and we headed in-land. We landed near a large mountain range that reminded me of the Rocky Mountains back home. It was also near where Son Goku's house used to be.

We set down in an open field, with forests off to the east and the mountains to the west. Master Roshi had taken out the Saibaman capsule earlier in the morning, and all he had to do was plant it in the ground.

I'd worn my best "fighting" clothes. They were tight but allowed for full-mobility. While Roshi covered the planting site with new dirt, I stretched out, loosening up before the match began. After he'd finished covering the Saibaman in soil, he dumped a green gel-like substance over it.

I felt a powerful ki signature emanating from the spot, and I knew the Saibaman was sprouting. Master Roshi scampered away, fearful of the beast. I'd told him that if I failed he would take Nimbus and fly and get one of the Z Warriors to kill it off.

After a few seconds, there was a slight rumbling and then out popped the green little rodent. It flew high into the air, spraying grass and dirt in every direction. Dirt didn't bother me, what did bother me was the fact that I suddenly didn't know if I could take this green beast.

I'd never felt genuine fear like that before, but I quickly quelled it. These last eight months had been the hardest in my life, and I agreed whole-heartedly in the saying: no pain no gain.

The green-skinned midget plopped down about 10 metres in front of me. Its body was heaving up and down, making scraggly noises from its throat. I found it the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen, and I was determined to wipe it from the face of the earth.

A rage, an unquenchable, un-deniable rage the likes of which I'd never felt before exploded from me. I shot straight at the being and struck at it with a flying ki-covered fist. I struck nothing but ground, I didn't so much see as I did sense him Zanzoken above me. As soon as my feet touched the ground I pushed off and shot up straight towards it. It was nearly a hundred metres above me, but I reached it in no time flat. We collided and exchanged a quick flurry of punches that we both blocked fairly easily.

He managed to shove me away back towards the earth but I caught hold of myself and landed softly. He then went on the offensive, flying towards me at a fairly quick clip. Right before he was on me though, I cleared my mind, prepared my legs and as his out-stretched claw whipped towards my head, I zanzokened away off to his right. He caught me in his line of vision and shot at me again, and again I zanzokened, only this time behind him.

He twirled around and swung a wild claw at my head. I easily ducked it and seizing my opportunity, struck him with a fist where his kidneys would be if he were human. Of course he had no internal organs, so it was just like hitting anything else on him. His armor-like skin absorbed most of the hit, and he wasted no time taking another swipe at my head. I was forced to whip my neck to the side to avoid the attack, and rather than trying something again, I kicked with all my might away from the ground.

I went high into the air, and within a single second my green opponent was with me. We struck each other with enough force to crack a mountain, only on one another's skin. I quickly got a step on him though, and managed to land a kick to his side, a punch to his non-existent nose, and a chop to his shoulder before he flew away.

I made sure not to let up, and set off after him. He flew upwards, straight towards the sun. He was much smarter than I suspected, the sun blinded me, and I was forced to hold in the air and blink away the lights. He took his opportunity; the beast was not stupid at all. He did an about-face and crashed into me with a dynamite kick.

I crashed into the ground at an amazing speed, breaking through a few layers of earth until I connected with some rock. My back tingled with pain and my stomach (where he'd hit me) was scraped from his claws. He didn't even give me time to get my wind back. He came down on me with a knee to the abdomen and then hooked his hands together, raised them high above his head and was about to bring them down on my head, but I managed to raise a hand and fire a ki blast straight into his sternum.

It sent him flying a few football field distances away. I collected my breath inside my lungs before shooting up and searching out for my enemy. I felt his ki off to my right. I squinted, and sure enough I spotted my Saiba-buddy running a circle around me, trying to flank me, or something.

Suddenly he zanzokened out of view, and I tried desperately to pick up his ki. I did late, and it cost me, he was only ten metres to my left. I was amazed at his speed, and I barely managed to evade his onslaught. He slashed and hacked with amazing ferocity. On one of his lunges, I was force to jump backwards leaving my legs in front of me. He slashed at my chest, and his body was right over my legs, so I took advantage of my position.

I had enough time to lower my foot slightly and then savagely bring it up. It connected with his chest again, and he was sent flying into the air. I finished my fall backwards and pushed myself into the air with my hands. I was going much slower than him so I speeded my ascent with the help of bukujutsu. He was disoriented in the air so I used a bit of my energy to zanzoken right in front of him.

His small beady eyes opened wide, and I punched him as hard as I could right in-between them. He was barely pushed back by the blow, but I followed it up with a rabbit punch to his chest and a roundhouse kick to his temple.

The kick propelled him through the air, off to my left and a good fifty metres away. I didn't go after him, instead taking the small lull in the action to catch my breath. He halted himself in mid-air and stared down at me, a small dent in his forehead.

The fight up to that point had been going mostly in my favour, but he decided to change all that with a very slick move. He sort of powered up, gaining more and more ki energy, for almost twenty seconds. I let him, for what reason? I have no idea; looking back it was a stupid and foolish mistake.

In one split second he was gone. He completely vanished from view, and I lost all trace of his ki. I frantically searched high and low, but he was nowhere to be found. Then suddenly something came from behind me and hit me in the back. I was propelled forward through the air as I turned to face what I assumed to be the Saibaman. There was nothing there, and I still had no sense of his ki.

I began to panic slightly. No sooner did I begin, than I thought I caught something out of the corner of my eye, down and to the right. I turned to face it, but just as I did so something struck me extremely hard in my chest. I was rocked upwards, and clasped my arms around my chest to comfort the amazing pain that was now in them.

I frantically searched again, but found nothing; I still couldn't see my attacker. The next time he passed I managed to begin to feel his ki, and tried to move my head, but failed and was struck in the jaw with what felt like a foot. My body followed shortly after my head in a less than epic descent to the ground.

After I'd crashed into the ground, I shook my head to clear the little black spots that were clouding my vision and then spat out some brand new blood from the inside of my mouth. I whipped my head around to face the sky above me and whatever it was that I was fighting.

I had no idea the Saibaman could move fast enough to avoid detection from me. It didn't seem fair, if I'd just prevented him from powering up, I knew I wouldn't have been in this shit. Suddenly a memory propped in my head. It was from a while back, maybe six months ago, when he was trying to teach me the Zanzoken technique for the first time.

I knew I didn't really have time to take a trip down memory lane, but I did it anyways. I remembered Master Roshi zanzokening out of view right in front of me. I couldn't even see him blur out of view like I usually could. I suddenly felt his ki behind me and I turned and asked him how he could move fast enough that I couldn't see. He replied saying that if I allowed myself to watch with an "un-moving eye" I would be able to see him zanzoken.

I thought "Why not?" And went for it. I stared at absolutely nothing, just the blue expanse known as the sky. For several seconds, nothing. Then, I thought I could hear that now familiar hissing sound that the Saibaman made. It didn't come from any one real spot, but from seemingly all around. I continued to stare into nothingness, until finally, I began to pick up what seemed like flashes of light, snapping around my vision. To begin I could barely tell the blurs apart from the sky, but after another second or two, they took on the familiar green tone of the Saibaman.

Apparently my methods for spotting were far too in efficient for my opponent, and he didn't mind taking advantage of my motionless position. He smacked me from behind, planting my face into the ground again, and then fired a small ki blast into my exposed back.

I was pushed down into the soil, the skin on my back singing away. I opened my mouth to scream in pain, but I ate only dirt. After what seemed like an eternity of pain, I managed to get up and spit out the earth. My body was racked with pain, but I knew I couldn't lose, not now.

I pulled my body up from the gutter and continued to look with un-moving eyes. I heard the Saibaman right away, and within a second or two, I could see the flashes of green skin. I was un-wavering, and I then realized that my green opponent was just toying with me. He could've struck me at any second, but he wanted to play with his catch first.

I smiled, that would be his biggest mistake. I tried to clear my mind of all impurities, so that my focus was steady. Once I did I saw him. I saw every movement he made, every motion he attempted. He was flying circles around me, at amazing speeds, as if he was always zanzokening. I waited patiently till he began heading in a straight direction, and then I struck.

I zanzokened right in front of him, and he froze in place ahead of me. I stared him down and he took a few hesitant steps back. I don't know if Saibaman have confidence or even consciousness, but I had a feeling they had fear. I knew from that point on the fight was mine to win.

I lunged straight for the Saibaman, and sure enough he placed his arms up in defence of his body, but his arms were what I was lunging for. I grabbed his right forearm with my left hand and flung him into the air. He easily adjusted in mid-flight and was preparing a ki-blast for me while still ascending. I didn't just let him fire it at me though, before it was even ready, I zanzokened behind him and kicked him off to the side again.

I could tell that rapid, non-stop zanzokening had taken a lot out of his body; he didn't even see me get behind him or even try and dodge or block my kick. I flew after his limping body, getting under him and punching him in the stomach.

He flew upwards from the recoil of the punch, and I took the opportunity to power up some ki in my hands. I concentrated all my power to my hands until they felt ready to explode with energy, and then yelled out "Renzoku!" and released the ki power from my hands.

Of course because he was in the air, he had the chance to dodge a lot of the little Renzoku energy blasts, but I did nail him a few times before he zanzokened out of my line of fire. It didn't matter, I'd used up all my available energy in that flurry, so I was probably going to have to brave it hand-to-hand.

I caught him in the weeds on the ground a few seconds later, his skin acted as a great camouflage. I flew down towards him, sweeping in at a low angle so I'd be right in front of him for just a second. As I thought he would, he whipped out another claw towards me right as I came into range.

I zanzokened behind him right as his out-stretched claw was brushing my head. When I reappeared behind him, I kneed him in the back, raising him off the ground, and causing him to spit a white substance (blood, saliva?) from his mouth. Right as I brought my hammer-locked hands down on his head soon after, he made the strangest sound I'd ever heard from him. It was sort of like a whimper a scared dog makes; only it had the same gurgling that had always come from the Saibaman.

It completely disgusted me, and right then I felt the same rage to wipe him from the face of the planet as when we started the fight. He fell to the floor, his body covered in soot, that white substance, and black bruises. I took a few deep breaths as he rose from the ground again; all that zanzokening had taken its toll on me. After a while he turned to me, his claws clenching and then un-clenching into fists, his whole body heaving with just the struggle to breath.

Suddenly he whipped his hands towards me, claws open. I hopped back quickly, avoiding them, and retaliated by jumping into the air with a slight backwards angle. The Saibaman lunged at me, but just as he came to me, I pushed a small bit of ki into my foot and shouted, "Dynamite Kick!" as I shot straight at him, and drove my ki-immersed foot into his face. I thought the collision was enough to kill him, but I could still feel his ki as he went flying at maybe 200 miles per hour into one of the mountains far away.

I knew I was strong, but I didn't think I could whip him around like that. I vaguely saw a cloud of dust and rock pieces rise up from where he crashed into the mountain. Once I touched to the ground, I set off after him at my full speed run. I was at the mountain in just a few seconds, and sensed his ki near-by. He was just pulling him-self out of the mountainside, a really pissed off look on his ugly face. I smiled, don't know why, but this was becoming fun.

I lunged at him again, and punched with an out-stretched arm where his head was. He narrowly evaded my strike, which shattered more of the mountain, and with my appendage sticking out like that; it left a wide opening in my torso. The Saibaman noticed this too, and slashed violently at my stomach, ripping off most of my shirt, and tearing through several layers of skin.

Blood began pumping from the wound almost instantly, and instinctively I covered it with my left (free hand). Seeing that I'd lost my concentration, my opponent grabbed onto my right (extended) forearm and dug his claws in, searing the flesh and pumping even more crimson liquid out.

I screamed as my pain receptors went off like crazy, and my vision began going out on me. I couldn't, no, I wouldn't, let myself die now. Just as I assured myself of this, the most disgusting, annoying, and mind-blowing sound pounded itself into my ears.

It sounded like someone was running over a million cats all at once, all screaming at the top of their small lungs. My vision returned and I saw that the black and blue face of the Saibaman was nodding up and down, his mouth open. I then realized it was laughing, it had thought it'd won.

I gritted my teeth, and yelled out in agony, hate and fear. I brought my legs together underneath me, pushed them together, and then shot them straight at the fucking piece of crap's head. My feet and his head connected with a SMACK the likes of which I'd never heard before.

He was blasted high above me, towards the top of the mountain. I flew after him, going full speed, the adrenaline, the hate running through me until all I could see was him laughing. I caught up to him no problem, and punched him once in the stomach, crashing him into the mountain again. I turned to my side, so my right hip faced him, brought my leg up and just started kicking him as hard as I could.

I went full speed, and I must've kicked him sixty or seventy times, driving him at least 10 metres into the width of the mountain. I flew into the newly created hole, dragged him out and flung him to the ground, his limp body falling like a feather. That wasn't fast enough for me, so I flew to his body, and hammered him towards the ground with both hands. He crashed into the ground and sent a cloud of dirt, dust and grass flying for several metres.

I was swooping in for the finishing blow as he was trying to get up, when suddenly he stuck his foot out and drove it right into my throat. The blow slightly crushed my voice box, and for several seconds, as I dropped to the ground and stumbled away, I couldn't breathe. Finally after maybe half a minute I began to take in oxygen again, but my lapse had allowed my green buddy to get back to his feet and regain some composure.

I hopped away from him, so we were 50 metres apart. Both of us were tired beyond belief, my muscles were absolute stone. I couldn't believe the Saibaman though, he was still conscious after the beating I'd given him. My anger for him was replaced by respect, and as soon as I accepted that I realized what I needed to do.

I took in a breath, the air pushing down the adrenaline, as I brought my hands to my hips and began focusing my ki. "Ka------" I began as I closed my eyes (not usually a smart move, but the Saibaman was still wobbly) and pushed all the energy I had left into my V-shaped palms.

I began then to remember what Master Roshi had said. Be at peace with all things around you, and be at peace with yourself. "me-----" I bellowed, the energy rushing through my body faster than ever. I was sort of at peace with the Saibaman, but I wasn't sure about myself.

"Ha------" There was something missing, something that made me sure of myself and all the living things around me, and I only had a very small time to find the thing. My ki was forming into a ball in my palms now, I was running out of time.

I racked my mind, what was it, what was the thing that set me at peace with myself? "me-----" I screamed through clenched teeth as I thought deeply. My energy was completely ready now, I just needed to finish it off.

I began to raise my hands, unsure if I would release the full power of the Kamehameha. I was about half-way to putting my hands in front of me and releasing the energy when it flashed inside my head. I don't know why it didn't come to me sooner.

I saw her not the way she was in the picture that I kept under my bed, but how I saw her the last time I left her. She was asleep, on the couch in her living room, her hair was tousled, her mouth hung open slightly, but her beauty and elegance was still astounding. For the split second that I saw that memory in my mind, I felt invigorated.

"HAAAAA!" I screamed so loudly I felt like my lungs would explode. I released my beam, it's power almost through me back, it was at least ten times the width of my body, and at least twice as high. I'd never felt power like that before. It's blue tint reminded me of her some how, and as soon as I struck the Saibaman with the attack, I knew it was over.

After I lost all traces of the Saibaman's ki, I ended the beam, and fell to the ground in exhaustion. I heard someone running up from behind me, but I recognized the soft steps as Master Roshi's. I tried to push myself up, but I'd lost too much blood, my right arm felt like it was going to fall off, and I couldn't find any strength anywhere in my body.

Master Roshi came up beside me and kneeled beside me, asking "Are you alright?"

I figured it was rhetorical, so I didn't answer. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small seed. "Here eat this."

Another Senzu Bean I figured, so I quickly snatched it from his palm and crunched it down. Sure enough, in a few seconds, all my strength returned to me, and I felt really good. I was still sore and everything, but I was doing well none the less.

"Thanks Master Roshi!" I exclaimed.

He just nodded, and then turned and asked me "Do you know what you did Cris?"

I was wondering that myself, but I didn't know so I replied "No, not really."

"You did it. You used the Kamehameha's full power." I stood there, and somehow I knew it was true. I didn't know exactly what to say, but Mater Roshi did. "So do you know what that means?"

I answered truthfully "No."

He turned back to me, and I thought I saw some tears falling from under his glasses. "It means I have nothing more to teach you. You're training under me is complete." I just nodded; I seemed frozen in place there. "Tomorrow I'll take you to Karin tower, from there you can go to Sky Palace and begin your training under Kami."

I nodded thinking: Hopefully tomorrow will be easier than today.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 Karnai 

I could feel him near me, but I couldn't tell quite where. If only the light had been better, I might've seen him coming, but I couldn't really use that as an excuse, my extra-ordinary hearing should've been enough. He came up behind me, and as I pivoted and swung my elbow towards his head, he zanzokened out of view and he was behind me again.

I kicked behind me with as much force as I could muster in that awkward position (not much). He easily caught my foot and flipped me forward. I fell flat on my face, and a fairly familiar elbow greeted my back rather harshly. All the air was knocked out of my body, quite an unusual occurrence considering my training, but Gideon was an unusual human being.

After he had embarrassed me, he bent down next to me and whispered, "That's game."

I nodded, struggling for air, as he got up and extended a hand in front of me. I grabbed onto it with my left hand and he hoisted me up. "Nice match." I struggled out.

"You too." He replied, looking me over for any serious injuries before nodding towards the door to what we'd affectionately dubbed "The Arena". We went out the huge iron doors, and the light from the outside stung my eyes immediately. None of my friends here could understand what it meant to be a Namek, where all the senses are incredibly sensitive and with the high altitude the sun was seemingly closer.

I squinted and kept my head low as we headed out together into the courtyard. Yukia and Kennard were waiting patiently outside, meditating, as Gideon and I left The Arena. Once we'd come completely out, they both got up from the ground and nodded to us as they were heading in. I was trying to rub my sore back while still keeping my eyes out of view of the sun, when a voice startled us all "Wait a minute Yukia and Kennard, don't go in yet."

We turned to the palace entrance, and there was Kami, the only one on the stinking planet that could begin to understand me. But his senses were dull with age, barely equivalent to that of a human's, his best years were behind him, and I found it hard to even talk to him for some reason, I don't know why.

"Don't go into The Arena, there's someone I want you all to meet."

Yukia, Kennard, Gideon and I all headed to the palace from the entrance to The Arena. Arsenia was off somewhere near the edge practicing his ki attacks before he went to Kami, while Nikita and Phoenix were already at the palace. Sky Palace had been re-fitted shortly after Goku's disappearance. It was now nearly three times as big as it used to be, and in addition to The Arena, there was a gym, a larger courtyard, and a bunch of small rooms used for meditation and sleep.

Once we'd all assembled in front of Kami, Gideon asked, "So whom do you want us to meet?"

Kami smiled, showing off his yellow, dull fangs, almost a disgrace to his Namekan heritage. "This little boy is going to be joining our team. His Name is Cris, and he's not from this dimension. He's been here for eight months, but trained under Master Roshi for that time."

Great, another recruit, hopefully he could keep up with us. "Come on out Cris." Kami yelled slightly. Out of the darkness of the palace doors came a small figure, dark at first, but as soon as the sun hit him, I got a full look. He hung his head low to start with, so I didn't get a great look at his face. His hair was a bright red, spiked and held in place with hair gel. He looked strong enough, his muscles were well defined and he seemed tall and wide enough. I could sense his ki, fairly weak compared to the rest of us, but for a boy his age, it was amazingly strong really. I saw Kami had already fitted him with weighted clothes and a gi. The orange on it clashed slightly with his hair, but didn't affect his overall feel.

He finally looked up, smiling and I examined his face. My first impression was that it was a face that had experienced things that most kids his age hadn't. We all looked him up and down, as he did the same to us. He carried a small bag of things in his hands in front of him; it made him look sort of like a child off to his first day of school.

Finally after several seconds of examination, Gideon brushed past me and extended a hand towards Cris. "Hi, my name's Gideon." Cris detached a small paw from his bag and shook Gideon's huge hand.

"Hi." Was all he said in a tiny voice. I could tell he was intimidated, which didn't fare well for his chances against the Caprians.

Yukia then stepped forward and also shook the boy's hand. One after another, they all introduced themselves, and Cris just took it all in. Finally it was my turn, and Gideon gave me a slight shove forward in my already sore back. I stepped up the steps of the Palace, and stood right in front of Cris.

He looked up to me, and I looked back. After several seconds, I stepped back down and extended my hand in the old earth custom. "My name is Karnai."

His reply was different than with all the others, he said, "I know."

Afterwards Kami guided him towards his room, which was coincidently right beside mine. He unpacked his few meagre possessions, and then came outside to the courtyard. Everyone stood there, looking at him. He just walked by us all, out into the courtyard and proceeded to warm up. He started by doing some sit-ups, and after about a hundred, everyone lost interest and went off to do their own thing. Yukia and Kennard went back to The Arena to begin their sparring problem, Nikita went off to meditate in her room, and Phoenix began zanzokening around the courtyard non-stop. Gideon, Arsenia and I went to practice our ki attacks.

We practiced for nearly two hours, the whole time, Cris just worked out. He must've done 10000+ sit-ups, followed by 5000+ squats and push-ups. Afterwards, he seemed slightly winded but that was probably just due to the weighted clothes. Once he was done though, he seemed lost, like a little child who was separated from his parents.

I left Gideon and Arsenia to practice and walked up to Cris. "What's wrong?"

He looked at me, and grinned slightly before asking sheepishly "Well, what do I do now?"

I looked at him sideways, trying to see if he was joking or not, I realized he wasn't. "Well, you can do whatever you want pretty much." He looked at me wide-eyed, like I'd sworn in front of virgin ears. I returned the stare back at him. He shook his head and murmured something I couldn't quite make out. "What?" I asked.

He looked up at me then, and replied in a firm voice "Oh, nothing, never mind." I just nodded, as he went about his own business. I returned to Gideon and Arsenia, who were trying to nail insects, a kilometre away from the edge of the tower with ki blasts. I joined in, it seemed like good target practice. I hit a few, but it was hard, my eyes were much better than my human counterparts so I hit a lot more than they did.

Soon though we'd cleaned out all the insects that happened to roam at that altitude, and we all went on to our own things. I followed Nikita's lead and began meditating in my room. I concentrated on perfecting one of my newest attacks, the Tsuihidan, running the motions through my mind several times, and watching myself perform the attack in my mind.

I spent a good two hours doing this before packing up and going outside again to try and see if I could actually perform the move. Before I got anywhere though, a rather strange site greeted me. Cris was in the courtyard circled by everyone else, and they were all firing ki blasts at the new trainee simultaneously. He was managing to dodge all the attacks, but just barely.

I walked up behind Kennard, who was the closest to me, and asked, "What is this?"

He turned to me, and I was amazed by the fact that there was a huge smile on his face. "We're trying to nail the sucker, what does it look like?" Suddenly two ki blasts from Gideon and Nikita collided and there was a deafening (for a Namek) explosion.

"But why?" I wondered aloud as I watched Cris sweat buckets trying to dodge some more blasts. He was doing it smartly though, staying low to the ground most of the time, forcing my partners to skim shots across the floor, as Kami would kill anyone who ruined the courtyard.

"He originally just asked me to shoot some small blasts at him and force him to dodge them, but then Phoenix joined in. Cris didn't seem to mind, so Yukia and Nikita jumped in after that. Soon it became a group event."

Cris was shooting around so fast I was amazed. When he seemed cornered he quickly zanzokened out of the way. I considered joining in, but that just seemed unfair. I was content on watching the display. I have to admit, it was pretty amazing, Cris was obviously winded, but continued to go all out, for fear of getting hit. It took about 5 minutes before someone struck him.

I'm not sure who it was, but the ki blast was yellow, and when it struck Cris it sent him flying over the edge of the courtyard. Everyone was stunned, he'd been doing a great job, and they would've stopped if they thought he was going to get hurt. No one even tried to catch him, as he plummeted towards the ground so far down. I could tell he had almost no energy left after going so hard for so long, so I leaped over the edge too and shot after him, covering myself in ki energy and flying my absolute fastest.

He was falling fast, but I was sure I could catch him before we touched to the ground. I felt everyone leap after Cris and I, but they were way too far behind, it was up to me. I easily caught up to him, and wrapped his limp body in my arms. I changed my direction, flying straight up back towards Sky Palace. As I was flying up, everyone floated in the air just below the palace, waiting for us, they all look really worried, but I knew the kid would pull through. Interestingly enough, Nikita seemed the most worried, either because she was the one who'd hit him… or possibly for some other reason.

In any case, he either needed a senzu bean or a regeneration tank. I slowly floated over to the palace doors, as Kami came out of the darkness from the inside of the palace. He obviously knew something had happened, probably picked up on the worries of everyone.

I gently placed Cris in front of me, his unconscious body felt like a feather, and Kami stepped down the palace steps and kneeled next to Cris, placing his cane beside himself. I walked back, giving Kami his room.

He placed his right hand over Cris' chest and his left over his head. Kami closed his eyes, and suddenly a small yellow aura began almost pouring from Kami's hands. The yellowish ki covered Cris' body, and suddenly all the scrapes, bruises and burns that had formed were wiped away. I stared in disbelief, my mouth hung open, I couldn't believe Kami had the ability to heal like this, he'd never done it in the past.

Cris began to stir, just slightly at first, but eventually his eyes opened, and his arms and legs began moving. Kami moved his hands away, picked up his cane, and then with its aid, stood up and waited for Cris to rise. Sure enough, the red-haired little Z Warrior ascended and turned to Kami. He bowed slightly and then almost whispered "Thank you sir."

Kami just nodded, looked at me, looked at everyone else (who had congregated behind me) and then turned and walked back into the palace. Cris stood there, then proceeded to stretch out some kinks in his back and arms. He then turned to face me and everyone else. He then surprised everyone by jumping over all of us, sailing through the air and landing in the middle of the courtyard.

"Wanna try that again?" He asked. I smiled, I was sure I was gonna like this kid.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 Cris 

It was the first birthday I'd ever spent alone. I didn't mind it really, I could live without any presents or material things, but there was one thing I truly missed, and I knew I might never see her again.

True, she had been there for my last birthday, but that seemed like such a long time ago. I really didn't want to take any trips back down the old haunted memory lane, but I did anyways. We'd gone out for supper and then headed back to her house, I remembered. I didn't want to recall any more, but I couldn't help it, I missed her too much, I needed her there, and she couldn't comply. I'd had, well I guess you could call them… plans, for that evening (I'll leave the details to your imagination), but they were cut short when we found her parents home and awake upstairs. Instead we just talked. I loved her voice, the way she rolled her r's and the way her small body could project such an amazing voice. So I didn't mind all that much that we could just talk.

We talked for several hours, well into the night. Her parents eventually went to bed, but I didn't notice, and by the time we were finished talking, we were both tired beyond belief. She began nodding off, so I walked her up to her room and tucked her into her bed. I considered helping her undress, but decided it wouldn't seem right. She rustled around in her bed for a while, but I knew I couldn't stay around all night, so I went back to the hotel room I'd rented.

I couldn't fall to sleep though; her face was already burned into my mind, keeping any hope of restful sleep a distant wish. I worked out for three hours, but instead of tiring me out, it invigorated me. I decided to run, rushing to the out-skirts of the city and then running around its circumference. By the time I was finished, it was near noon. I went back to the hotel and took a shower, changed and then headed back to her house. When I arrived, I didn't want to talk to her parents, so I went over to her window and jumped up to the sill, then lifted the frame easily and stepped in, closing it behind me afterwards.

She was still sound asleep, her body twisted at an irregular position, her face pressed down against the pillow, but her torso facing upwards, while her legs were off to the side. I just shrugged, went to her closet and pulled out a chair. I dragged across her carpet, settled the chair at the foot of her bed and plopped myself down.

I heard her parents pacing around downstairs and outside her room. I just sat patiently (even tried meditating) waiting for her to awake. Soon she began moving around, rolling onto her back, her slim body perfectly aligned. I could feel her breathing becoming less and less constant, and I knew she was waking up. Suddenly though she surprised me by saying "Hi."

I barely managed to stammer out a "H…hi." In reply. I saw her chest rise slowly and then fall, before she sat up and stared at me. I was more than content to stare right back at her, gazing into her eyes, and for the first time in a long while, I was truly at peace. She smiled at me and I smiled back weakly, but the whole time I couldn't think of anything other than how beautiful she was.

Finally her mom of all people broke the silence yelling from the main floor "Honey, are you awake?"

We both jumped slightly as Seana turned to the door and yelled back "Uh, yeah mom."

Her mom shouted back "Ok, come down soon, breakfast is ready."

We both turned our attention back to each other, before I nodded and she nodded back. I got up from my seat, grabbed the chair and pulled it back to its place in the closet. As soon as I turned around I was greeted with a long and deep kiss. I wasn't really ready for it, so I didn't kiss back, but I did manage to wrap my arms around her waist as she did the same to my neck.

She finally pulled back, and then she bent her neck and rested her head against mine. I whispered into her ear something meant only for her ears. She just closed her eyes and squeezed my neck slightly, as I pulled her even closer. We hung in each others arms for a few seconds before she said "I better get downstairs before my mom comes up here."

She brought her head back, but before she could leave, I kissed her again, and this time we both expected it. Once we were done, she slipped out of my grasp and went to her dresser, brushing her hair. I walked over to the window and slid it open. She didn't turn to me but asked in a patronizing voice "Did you come in here?"

I didn't know what to say, so I answered like a small child caught eating the cookies before supper "Yeah." I hung my head.

She smiled, and just nodded towards me. I slipped out the window onto the sill and pushed the window back down before I dropped down to the ground and walked off towards my hotel room.

That was a year ago, and I'd changed so much since then, but one thing hadn't changed, my love for Seana. I'd had trouble putting my finger on the feeling, but eventually it hit me, the night I decided I needed to settle my dispute with Triono, and I saw Seana for the last time.

I fell back into my bed, in my room, on Sky Tower. It'd only been two weeks training up there, where the air was so thin you had to be in amazing shape just to walk around, much less exercise all out the way we did. Kami's weighted clothes helped a lot too; the extra weight on the wrists, and especially the feet made it a lot harder to do anything, therefore increasing the gain.

I was nowhere near anyone else though, and I had a feeling I wouldn't be for a while. I'd been working my butt off, but so was everyone else, and they were all really powerful. I'd taken a scouter from Master Roshi and used it one time when everyone was listening to Kami. Gideon was the most powerful human, near 22,000, and Karnai was at 28,000. I knew mine was at most about 1,700 and the closest to me was Nikita, at 8,000, I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Phoenix (who I'd clocked at 10,000 only) had taken me under his wing, and often we would spend hours in The Arena, sparring the afternoon away. He was not ruthless like Triono had been, he taught me where my mistakes were and helped me fix them. Whenever I couldn't keep up with him, he would slow down to my level, often going at only a quarter of his full speed to allow me to attack him. Karnai had also apprenticed me, often teaching me moves that he himself had only begun to master.

Still I couldn't help but think about Seana. No matter how hard I worked, her face flashed across my eyes throughout the day, and there was no way I could be with her. I groaned in rage in the darkness of my room. I was supposed to be meditating, but it was my birthday, and I allotted myself a few minutes of rest. I tried to purge the thought of her from my mind, but that was impossible, she was in too deep.

I grew angry, at myself, at her, at Kami, at Krillin, at Triono, at the whole freakin universe. I always learnt though that it was better to vent your anger then just talk about it, so I got up, headed out into the sunlight of the afternoon, and went to find Phoenix.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 Kennard 

We faced off in the dim light of The Arena, neither of us willing to make the first move. I knew Arsenia far too well though, my patience far exceeded his own; with little doubt he would be the aggressor.

That was more than fine with me, I knew every move he possessed, nothing he could do would surprise me. Sure enough, about a minute later, he zanzokened out of view.

I easily tracked his ki, off to my right. I swivelled to face him, and was greeted by the sight of his fist closing in on my head. I fell back, allowing his reckless blow to sail over my head and torso. My feet were now directly under his body, so I swung them up towards his body in unison.

He zanzokened away again, so I was forced to catch myself in mid-air and again seek out his ki. I picked him up to my left this time. I planted my feet into the dirt of The Arena, facing Arsenia and waiting for his attack. For several seconds, nothing, then a strange sensation came over me. Suddenly I felt three Arsenia's directly in front of me.

Damn it, I hated his tri-form attack, and I still hadn't mastered the technique myself, so I knew I'd be forced to knock his three bodies back together, like I did when I beat him at the Tenkaichi Budoukai. Just as the thought popped in my head, two of Arsenia's forms flew at me from the right and left. I could barely see them in the bad light, but I did see that one of them was aimed at my head, and the other at my knees.

Since they came from both directions, my left and right flanks were cut off, so I was forced to float horizontally (like I was lying on an invisible bed) in an attempt to make them miss.

It didn't work. The high one struck me in the jaw with an elbow and flung me full force against the far wall. I crashed hard, breaking some of the brickwork, and then I fell to the ground with my back to the wall. I was dazed by the collision, and was barely able to dodge the knee sent by one of the bodies. His appendage struck straight through the wall, sending shrapnel flying all over. It also left his body parallel to my shoulders. I brought my arms up, wrapped them around his waist and flung him full force to the ground.

A cloud of smoke rose up, and just as quickly, another Arsenia appeared from out of the darkness with a dynamite kick. I managed to zanzoken out of the way, even in my awkward position. I disappeared and reappeared to the right of my previous position, a few metres away from my attacker. Rather than let him get a bead on me, I zanzokened again, this time to right behind him. He felt my ki, and swung a wild elbow at me, I easily blocked it and proceeded to kick him in the spine, sending him into a pile beside his other body.

A warning light went off in my mind, but too late. Suddenly a fist appeared out of nowhere and connected with my already sore jaw. Arsenia's third body sent me flying a small distance, where I ended up landing in the dirt. I shot up to my feet, and saw all three forms orienting themselves.

I decided to try and blow them apart, I knew they were less coordinated the farther apart they were from each other. I concentrated my ki into my hands and right as they were preparing to attack, I fired two ki beams at their feet. The ground below them exploded, sending each body flying in a different direction. I was about to rush after the one that had gone to my left when it happened.

Now usually on Earth there are 9 powers that you are always aware of, Cris, Karnai, Gideon, Yukia, Arsenia, Phoenix, Nikita, Krillin and myself. You don't even have to seek them out, they're just always there, sometimes growing, but never really falling. So when one of the powers began fading, fast, I halted in my tracks.

For quite a while, I didn't even breath, I didn't even see Arsenia reform into one body, I was concentrating on finding out which power was fading at the time. I couldn't figure it out so instead I narrowed it down by figuring out who it wasn't.

Well it wasn't Arsenia, or I, I sensed Cris and Phoenix sparring down near the base of Karin tower, Gideon was in his room, and Karnai was in the courtyard, as was Nikita and Yukia. That left one person. "Oh god." I whispered through clenched teeth as I realized who it was.

Arsenia and I rushed towards the door of The Arena at the same time, we slammed open the door and sprinted into the courtyard. Everyone except Phoenix and Cris was also standing confused in the courtyard. Gideon yelled out "Ok everyone, let's go to the palace and see what Kami has to say."

We all nodded and quickly flew over to the palace entrance. As we waited there some of us whispered amongst ourselves about what could have happened. Cris and Phoenix flew up from one of the sides, looking rugged and beaten (more Cris than Phoenix) soon after. As soon as they joined us, the elaborate golden plated doors of the palace opened and two figures, one short and the other shorter, stepped out of the darkness.

Kami and Mr. Popo came out and everyone fell silent and turned their heads to the Namek and his assistant. Gideon spoke first, asking in an almost frightened voice "What's wrong with Krillin?"

Kami looked at Gideon, then stared each of us in the eye one at a time. When he came to me, I thought I might've seen a tear falling down his cheek, and that's when I knew it was over, Krillin was gone. Finally after a while he responded. "Krillin… is dying."

We all knew that, but none of us were willing to admit it until we heard it out of Kami's mouth. I hung my head, and tried to imagine what would've happened if Krillin hadn't been here. He was the one who saw me in the Tenkaichi Budoukai and took me to train with Kami. That was three years ago, and I owed Krillin everything. I pictured him; he seemed completely fine when I last saw him, which made me wonder what could possibly be wrong with him. I was about to ask what it was, but Cris beat me to it. "What's wrong with him?" He asked, hesitatingly.

Kami stared at the red-haired fighter and replied "It was just his time, Krillin was very old."

A very strange look popped up on Cris' face, like he didn't understand that Krillin was over 70 years old. Cris piped up again "But how could that be? He was so strong, there's no way he could be old enough to die."

Kami smiled slightly, and Yukia chuckled slightly before Gideon offered an explanation. "Krillin is no where near his peak, when he was wished back with the dragon balls ten years ago, he was 64, he hasn't trained much for almost 50 years, counting his time in the other dimension."

Cris went wide-eyed and didn't really understand what it meant. I don't think he realized yet how powerful some of our opponents would be. Ah, to be as ignorant as Cris was must've been nice. I worried about what we'd face every single day, every time I woke up I realized we'd be facing inconceivable odds in just over two years. I didn't know if I would be strong enough, and I truly feared for my life.

Kami snapped my thoughts on my own mortality when he spoke again "He's requested that everyone go and see him, he's over at Master Roshi's house. He chose to part there instead of in a hospital because he says his greatest memories are of that house."

Everyone nodded slightly and then floated up above the palace. Gideon covered Kami in his ki and Karnai took Mr. Popo in his, and soon everyone was off. We headed southeast, towards the Kame-house, after a few seconds, Cris called for Nimbus to take him the rest of the way. We went solemnly, none of us talking at all, a type of tension that can only be created through death hung in the air.

We reached Master Roshi's house in about five minutes, settling down in front of the door to the old wooden shack. Kami brushed past each of us and stepped up the stairs, then tapped on the wooden door with his cane. I heard the scurrying of foot steps inside for a few seconds before the door opened.

Master Roshi stood in the doorframe, a solemn look on his face, as no one spoke a word. Cris broke the silence, greeting his former teacher. "Hi Master Roshi."

The old man's face brightened only a little at the sight of his student. He didn't reply, instead addressing everyone. "Come on in, he's upstairs in his old room." We filed into the house one at a time, I came up last, just behind Kami and the waddling Mr. Popo.

Once we'd all got inside, I closed the door and we headed up the small staircase to our left. Within a few seconds we were at the doorway to Krillin's room. I'm sure everyone felt his ki within the room, I know I did; and it was weak, weaker than I'd ever felt from him before. A pang of sorrow hit me, I didn't know if I could see my teacher, my idol, hell, my recruiter dying in front of my eyes.

I swallowed deeply; I wouldn't let the tears that were forming at the corners of my eyes drip down, not in front of everyone.

Master Roshi stepped his way in front of everyone and faced the door. I watched his hand, as it slowly moved towards the doorknob, and I realized it was shaking. I realized no one would be able to take this easily. Krillin had found the talent, the fighting spirit in all of us, and we all knew how important he was in the history of the planet.

Slowly, the door opened, creaking the whole time. The room was dark, and smelled of sweat and another aroma that I'd only smelt one other place.

A memory flashed across my face, a painful one. I recalled everything, the fire, the screams, the vision of my brother burning in front of my eyes, and the smell. That's what the stench in Krillin's room was, it was the smell of death, something no one who has experienced it can forget.

I halted in my tracks as everyone else drudged into the room. I couldn't go in, going in would mean seeing my brother again. I couldn't do it, I had to get away from that place, away from the vision. I took a step back, and shook my head vigorously to get the memory out.

Kami must've sensed my wariness, as he asked "Kennard, what's wrong?"

I looked at him, but all I could see was my brother. I tried convincing myself that it was all in the past, but it wasn't, it was happening again, someone I cared for was dying, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. I fell to one knee, and now Nikita, Kami and Karnai were at my side, wondering what was wrong.

I didn't know how to explain it to them, so I didn't even try. Krillin was the only one who could possibly understand, he'd performed a mind transfer on me after I won the Tenkaichi Budoukai, but now he was gone, and I had no one who knew what I'd been through.

I took a few deep breaths, shut my eyes, and tried to clear my mind. After a while I managed to calm myself completely. I stood up, looked at those around me and nodded towards Krillin's yawning door.

The room was lit only by a small candle on a stand across from the bed Krillin lay on. He was out of hi orange gi and clothed in only his underwear. His bed was wet with perspiration and water he'd dumped on his face.

He didn't seem to notice us for a long time, in fact he was almost asleep, but Master Roshi gently nudged him back to consciousness. He turned to face us, and a weak smile spread across his pale face. His ki was so weak, like a baby, and I knew his body was ready to burn out.

"Hi." He said in a voice so faint and small I could barely hear him.

"Hi." Everyone replied in unison. A few of us, including myself, choked the word out. I was near the back, with Nikita at my side and Cris directly in front of me. I was barely able to see over his shoulder, but I didn't mind, the less I saw the better.

"So…" he began, but was cut off when he was forced to cough a few times. The hacking sound rang through my ears, and I had to blink away some more tears that were forming. Arsenia knelt next to the bed and Krillin stuck out his hand as he cleared his throat. Arsenia clamped onto the frail hand with both paws, and bowed his head to Krillin.

I felt Nikita shaking to my left, and I turned to face her. Her eyes were red, her cheeks covered in tears, her body heaving heavily. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, and pulled her against me. She leaned her head on my shoulder and then I rested my head on hers. We watched as Krillin bent over to Arsenia's ear and whispered something into it, causing the black haired young man to convulse violently, sobbing the entire time. Krillin had been the one to save Arsenia from his life of poverty and hate, and Arsenia would never forget him for it.

Once he was finished, Arsenia turned, his entire face red and his shoulders bobbing violently. I just clutched Nikita even harder, and concentrating on blocking out my memories. Krillin then spoke to the entire group. "I want you all to know one thing. I love you all. I can't imagine these past ten years without you, you made the time worth living. I've seen you all grow up so much, and there's no way you can ever take my memories of you away from me." Just the word, memories, was enough to bring back the sound; the cracking of the fire, the falling of the house, and the screams of Jacas. Krillin was soon talking again though, so I didn't have to listen for very long. "I ask only one thing of you all. I h—" he began, but was cut off by more coughing. Cris shook his head in front of me. "I hope you all have lives as great as mine was." He was talking like it was already over, and it was. "If you guys become half as good of friends as I had when I was a Z Warrior, you'll be friends for life."

There was a group nod, and everyone looked at Krillin, urging him to continue. He complied, speaking once more. "I know you guys will beat those Caprian bastards coming here. I have confidence in each and every one of you to save the universe, you're the only ones who can. If there was one reason I'd like to stay, it would be to see the look on General Yoorabit's face when you beat him." There was a long pause before he finished. "Goodbye everyone."

Nikita sobbed loudly in my arms, Yukia fell to the ground, and Gideon, rarely a man to show emotions, swallowed to hold back a sob, while a few tears rolled out of his eyes. Karnai and Cris showed the least emotion, probably because they'd known him the shortest.

Master Roshi stepped in between Krillin and us. "Let's go now, leave him be." We picked ourselves up, each one of us taking a final glance at our bald forefather. I left near the end, but I didn't look back, for fear it would provoke old, haunting memories. It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life; I regretted it for as long as I lived.

We plopped ourselves down in the chairs and couches of Master Roshi's house, some of us choosing to seat on the floor. We sat there for maybe ten minutes in complete silence, before Arsenia of all people broke the quiet. "I remember," he began, as everyone turned to him and was amazed when he chuckled slightly. "I remember when I tried to beat him up when he saw me in the street of the eastern capitol." He laughed again, and a large smile spread across his tear-stained face. "Man, did he open up on me. I was in a regeneration chamber for six days cuz of him."

Gideon and Yukia nodded knowingly, I hadn't been around then, but I had a feeling where he was going with this. "Yeah." Yukia agreed, before continuing the conversation. "I remember when he told me about the fight against Cell, which he lost." I nodded myself, I'd heard that story, Krillin had been so proud of it. "He got beat up so bad," Yukia said in a steadily increasing voice "but he was so damned proud of the fact he lasted as long as he did."

I smiled slightly; I'd always remember the look on his face when he told that story, smug and proud. I chipped in "Sometimes he'd leave out parts about how Cell hit him. I always had to remind him and he'd always look pissed when I did."

Everyone smiled, and Arsenia even laughed a little. Gideon said something next, followed by Cris, and for almost two hours, we just talked about Krillin. We talked about his bad jokes, his height, his friends, everything. Every minute I felt his ki getting weaker and weaker, and I'm sure everyone else felt it too, but none of us said anything, we chose instead to think of the positive.

Cris was talking about how Krillin beat up his friend Triono in their dimension when it happened. Krillin's ki disappeared; he had died and was gone for good.

Everyone fell silent, and hung their heads to cry silently. Master Roshi sat up from his chair, walked across the room and up the stairs to Krillin's grave of a room.

All my memories of my time with Krillin flashed before my eyes, but soon the images were replaced with tears. I tried hard to keep from remembering Jacas screams, but they pounded their way into my head. And soon the smell of Krillin's, of my brothers death poured into my nostrils and over-rode all thought.

I lied on the ground and cried my eyes out, there was nothing more to do, nothing I could do. Soon everyone was crying, not a single soul would be spared that day.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 Triono 

After two months of training with King Kai, he and I had reached a sort of unspoken agreement. As long as I did whatever he wanted, no matter how stupid it sounded, he would cook me large meals and allow me time to meditate. This worked for both of us, as long as I didn't argue with him, I didn't have to put up with his super corny jokes, and he didn't have to put up with my "surly attitude".

I'd managed to catch bubbles after about three weeks, and after that I was forced to hit a small cricket called Gregory. That took about a week and a half, I found the large green insect was far too cocky, and I easily managed to nail him with the hammer King Kai gave me.

After that, King Kai pretty much let me do whatever I wanted. Of course he made me practice a bunch of new attacks, like the Triple Strike, the Nirvana Attack, and the Manaba (sort of like the Tasaranko), but he never made me do any serious hard exercise, instead opting to leave me under the shade of the tree and allow me to meditate.

I spent several hours a day under that tree, sometimes visualizing my attacks, but most of the time spent there was used to reflect. I reflected on everything, my life, Cris, Krillin, anything that had an impact or influenced me. When I was dying on the ground there nine months ago, only one thought flickered through my mind, the hope that I would maybe see my mom after I died.

Unfortunately people who died in my home dimension didn't come to this one after they died, so I tried to forget about her. Instead I threw myself into my training, for the first time in my life, I knew I was getting stronger, I was much stronger now than I was before I got to King Kai's planet, and still under the ten times Earth normal gravity.

I didn't mind life on the small green planet, there was no one to talk to really, but that didn't bother me, I never talked very much anyway. The only problem with the lack of wildlife was I had no one to fight. I sensed King Kai was an amazingly powerful man, despite his appearance, and to fight him would be foolhardy. So I was forced to work my ass off, mastering techniques that were based upon attacks I hadn't even heard of.

One day after my first two months I walked up to my master an asked him how many moves he could possibly teach.

"Well," he began, slumping his head in concentration "there's the Triple Strike, Nirvana Attack, Manaba, Tsuihidan, Kaioken, Spirit Bomb, Yakaran, and the Ioni Cannon."

That was an impressive list, but I had to ask "Are you going to teach me all those moves?"

He chuckled, and I was worried he was going to go into another laughing fit, but he cut himself short, answering "Oh heavens no. Half of those moves I can't even perform myself. Although I did master the Kaioken a few years ago."

I was slightly shocked, King Kai was supposed to be the best Martial Arts master in the universe, how could he be so good if he couldn't even perform half his own attacks? I stood there mind-boggled, as he continued on "There's just one man who mastered all my attacks." He said with a sigh, and shook his head.

I knew it was Goku, I'd picked up that much from Krillin back on the ship, but what I didn't know was why Goku was the only one he ever tried to teach the Spirit Bomb and Kaioken too. I decided to find out. "King Kai, why don't you teach all your students the Kaioken attack, and the Spirit Bomb?"

He looked at me quizzically, almost like he thought I was joking. He smirked slightly before answering, "To learn the Spirit Bomb, one must have a heart so pure, that no evil has touched it. Goku, and possibly his son Gohan were the only two beings like that. As for Kaioken, it allows a person to multiply their power, which in the wrong hands could cause someone to un-knowingly commit suicide. That's why I'm not teaching it to you, and I may never teach it again."

I nodded, but I wasn't sure if my master was fully aware of the situation. The Caprians coming towards Earth could destroy the universe, if he could do anything to help us out, he damn well should! I dropped the subject though, not wanting to start an argument or anything. I turned to the "south" (away from the house) and decided to try and perfect my zanzoken technique.

The zanzoken technique required everything; a strong body, a calm mind and complete ki control. Under the heavy gravity of King Kai's planet, it was near impossible to perform. I'd had to use it to hit Gregory with the hammer, but other than that, I hadn't spent much time on it.

So after conversing with King Kai about his attacks, I walked over to the side of the stone road and began to practice. I cleared my mind, bent my legs, and immersed myself in my ki. I aimed myself towards the tree, I pushed with everything I had, and I instantly knew I correctly zanzokened. I lost all my senses, but regained them within a split second. I was now about ten feet away from the tree, so I ran back to the side of the road and tried it again.

Each time I performed the move I got closer and closer to the tree, sometimes changing my stance, the angle of my body, or some other little nuance. After about thirty minutes I reached the tree from the side of the road, and was instantly proud of my small accomplishment.

Since I was already at the tree, I sat down under it, crossed my legs and arms, closed my eyes and began to meditate. I tried to find even more ways to perfect the zanzoken technique, but came up empty. So instead I tried to visualize the Triple Strike, the one move I hadn't been able to master that King Kai had taught me. I knew you had to use your ki to fool your enemy into thinking you were behind them, and then attack, but I had no clue how to create the false ki signature necessary. So instead of actually trying to understand the attack, I concentrated on the fake ki presence.

I meditated for about two hours on the subject, coming up with the start of an idea, when suddenly I felt a huge, and I mean HUGE, ki signature heading towards me.

I opened my eyes, shot up from the ground, and turned towards the source. The ki signature felt familiar, but I couldn't tell who it was, definitely not Cris. It was coming from Snake Way, but was heading at speeds far beyond anything I could reach. I ran towards the tail of Snake Way, hoping to see what was coming. King Kai walked calmly up behind me, Bubbles in tow, while Gregory was nowhere to be found.

I turned to King Kai and asked in a tense voice, "Who is that coming here?"

The blue skinned teacher just smiled and replied, "You'll see."

I figured it was no one bad, so I calmed slightly, but I was still somewhat nervous, although I didn't know why. We waited, but not for long; soon enough a small dot appeared in the orange skies horizon. I squinted, but couldn't make out whom it was. The figure was flying along the path at amazing speeds, his ki left a large trail of white energy behind him. Unless one of my future teammates had died, I was pretty sure I knew who it was.

My thought was confirmed, a bald head and an orange gi came clearly into view, and I realised it was Krillin. A thought came soon after; if Krillin was here, that meant he couldn't be in his dimension. That meant he'd died, but as strong as he was, I wondered how he could've died. A hideous thought popped in my mind, and I pictured another Nacran killing Krillin and going on to destroy the Earth.

But I looked to King Kai, he was still smiling, and he hadn't said anything, so I figured the Earth was fine, at least for now. I turned back to Snake Way, and Krillin was almost right in front of me, in fact he was less than two metres away from me, standing comfortably with a huge smile on his face.

I grinned and walked alongside King Kai towards the short fighter. "Hi King Kai," Krillin exclaimed in his high pitched voice "Hi Triono." He finished as he turned to me.

I opened my mouth to welcome him, but King Kai cut me off "Hi there." He almost shouted back.

I gave my master a side-ways glance before stepping in front of Krillin and asking, "What are you doing here?"

He looked into my eyes, took a deep breath and then shut his eyelids. When he opened them again, he replied "I came here to see how you were doing." That wasn't what I meant, and he knew it, but King Kai cut me off again.

"So how are you doing?" He asked, his fishy voice reaching its maximum annoyingness.

"I'm ok, but I'm kind of worried about, them, back on earth."

King Kai nodded, his smile fading slightly. He answered back "Well, we just gotta hope they work hard enough to be prepared." Krillin nodded slightly, but still seemed doubtful. I inferred that the training back on earth wasn't going so well.

"Speaking of which," Krillin said in a loud voice, cutting off my train of thought "how is your newest trainee doing?"

King Kai and Krillin both turned to me, a smile on both their faces. I don't know why, but I blushed slightly and dropped my head. Maybe I didn't like the idea of being a "trainee". King Kai shrugged and said "Pretty good, I guess. He's learnt some difficult manuevers in his time here."

"Yeah, he didn't even know how to fly when I first caught him."

King Kai giggled slightly, so I gave him the dirtiest look I could manage. He just giggled even more, so I turned to Krillin and asked, "How's Cris doing?"

"He's alright, but he was still way behind everyone else when I left him." I was kind of sad, I was getting really strong here, and Cris was still slaving away but barely getting stronger. "In three months though, he's going to start gravity training, along with everyone else." This didn't hit me as a shock, I'd already taken the information from Krillin's mind a while ago, but I had a jump start on everyone else, I'd already started my gravity training, and trained under the greatest master in the universe.

I smiled at the thought, for the first time in my life, I was getting the advantage. Krillin studied me for a few seconds, then continued "Just wondering, but how do you think your doing?" I didn't know if he meant training wise, or on the inside. He cleared it up quickly. "Are you listening to King Kai and doing everything your told?" I nodded, and so did he. "Good. He may not seem like it," he pointed towards the now hysterically laughing King Kai. "but he's a really good master. If it weren't for him, I don't know where any of us would've been against a lot of our enemy's."

King Kai's laughing slowed to a chuckle, and eventually stopped. Once he had control of himself again, he asked Krillin "Did you bring the stuff?"

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot." Krillin replied in an exasperated voice, as he un-slung a small duffel bag that had been hanging over his shoulder. I don't know how I didn't notice it before, but it blended right in with his orange gi. He dropped the bag on the ground, dropped down to his knees, and opened it. I couldn't see what was inside, his torso blocked my vision, but I heard the sound of metal on metal somewhere within the bag. After a few seconds Krillin closed the bag again and told King Kai "Yup, it's all in here, everything you asked for."

He handed the bag to King Kai, who in turn crouched next to Bubbles and whispered something in the monkeys' ear. The ape grabbed the bag and trotted off towards the house. I turned to follow, in a hope to see what was in the bag, but Krillin spoke to me once again. "So Triono, do you think you'll be ready in two years and three months for the Caprians?"

I turned back to face him and answered directly "Yes."

King Kai smiled and almost whispered "Confidence, I like that."

Krillin nodded, and then added "Well you better be, we're going to need another Super Saiya-jin for the upcoming fight."

I'd heard King Kai use that term before, but I didn't know what it meant, so I asked. "What's a Super Saiya-jin anyways?"

Krillin and King Kai both turned to face me again, and I felt like a little kid asking his parents about sex. Krillin replied with a query of his own. "How old are you now?"

"17."

"You're 17 and you don't know about Super Saiya-jin's?" He didn't even give me a chance to say no. "Well, a long time ago it was just a legend, but then Goku made it a reality, in his fight against Freeza. You see when a Saiyan warrior, like yourself, reaches a certain level of power, they have a pure heart, and they experience an extreme amount of rage, they can transform into Super Saiya-jin's. When they do their power is magnified immensely, their hair turns golden yellow and their eyes turn green."

I tried to see if Krillin was guessing, but I figured he wasn't. I thought it was more funny than anything, I mean golden hair, green eyes, it sounded like a bad Halloween costume. In any case, I figured you needed to be way stronger than I was right then, so I didn't really put any thought into it.

I shrugged and said "Sounds cool, can't wait till I become one." Krillin must've picked up the slight sarcasm in my voice and gave me a strange look. I shrugged it off, and turned to walk back to King Kai. Krillin followed me and we caught up to the antenna-laden man in a few seconds.

"So, you wanna stay for supper Krillin?" King Kai asked.

Krillin scratched the back of his neck and answered tentatively "Well, thanks for the offer, but I'm kinda going to see Yamcha, Tien and Chao-zu." I had a vague recollection of who they were, but it didn't really seem all that important. I was glad Krillin stopped by, but it didn't matter to me how long he stayed.

"That's ok, but make sure you stop by again sometime, it gets kinda lonely out here sometimes." King Kai said in a sympathetic voice. I realized it'd been a while since he cracked a joke, in fact almost an eternity for him. Right after I realised it though, he popped a really bad one liner. "It looks like I'm going to have to make some… long distance phone calls." He started giggling, clamping his hands over his mouth. Krillin and I stared blankly at him, neither of us got it until he explained it. "Get it, he's gonna be far away, and I'm gonna have to call him, long distance. Plus, I don't even have a phone." I thought it was an all time low, even for him, but King Kai just kept giggling, until finally he broke into laughter, rolling over in the grass, struggling for air.

"Yeah." Was all I said. Krillin and I turned to each other and I asked. "So when you coming back?"

"I don't know, but it'll probably be before you leave, don't worry. Oh yeah, Kami told me they had all seven dragon balls ready, and whenever you think your done training under King Kai, just let him know, and they'll wish you back."

A question popped into my mind. "Why don't they wish you back first?"

"I died of natural causes, the Eternal Dragon can't bring someone back who died like that."

"Natural causes? How could you die of natural causes?"

Krillin smirked and replied "Cris didn't get it either, but I'm over 70 years old Triono, my body just couldn't take all the years of training I put on it."

I couldn't believe that Krillin was really that old. I had a harder time believing that an old timer beat me up while I was transformed. In any case, Krillin turned, looked towards snake way and said "Well, I'll talk to you later, make sure you train real hard for the fight." With that he shot off into the sky, his ki producing a brilliant light. I watched him sail off into the distance until I could no longer see him.

I turned to King Kai, who was still laughing his ass off, and then I went to go practice my zanzoken a bit more.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 Phoenix 

I don't know why Cris and I chose to go sparring that night, it was a foolish choice, to say the least. I guess we were just both worried.

We both knew we'd be starting our gravity training in under a week, and we both wanted to be strong enough to withstand the high gravity we'd be putting our bodies under. So when Cris barged in on me sleeping in my room, shoved me awake and asked me if I wanted to spar, I agreed in a few seconds.

After I changed, we left the room and floated down to earth, before proceeding to fly off to a small island off in the north west corner of the planet. Neither of us spoke much on the journey there, we were both tired, so you think I might've noticed the extra light that night, but my senses eluded me at the time, so we continued on.

When we reached the island, we plopped down in an open clearing, with very little vegetation around. There were mountains off to the west, but other than that, there was nothing separating us from the mountains. Cris and I both took in some fresh night air, stretched out a bit, and then faced off.

We stood nearly two hundred yards apart, staring straight into each others eyes. I remember seeing an extra ordinary amount of reflected light in his eyes, but I still didn't hook on, I was really tired. Cris' power level had tripled in the four months he'd been training under Kami, it was almost at 3000 now, and with the gravity training to begin in just a little while, he'd be even stronger very soon.

As for me, I was beginning to think something was wrong with me. I'd been stuck at a 12,000 power level for almost two months, and no matter how hard I trained I couldn't get past the hump. Gideon had noticed it and tried to help, but whenever he and I sparred, he just opened up on me, and I wasn't ready for that.

I'd begun to think that maybe all saiyans max out at some point, until they go under an immense amount of training, or get beat up really bad and are healed back to health. So I'd been waiting patiently for the start of the training, and usually wasting my hours away sparring with Cris.

The small kid surprised me more often than not. He had some amazing moves, some of which I had trouble dodging or countering. Often though I'd just block whatever attacks he sprung at me, I was still way more powerful than him.

After a few seconds of waiting, he nodded. He and I had devised a sort of system with which to alert the other of what they wanted to do without words. A nod meant we would rush each other and just duke it out, not the best of strategies, but I knew meetings like that increased Cris' speed dramatically.

We both sprinted forward, I covered the ground much more quickly than he of course, so we ended up meeting at more the two thirds mark. We collided with a humungous "Bang!" sound that shook the ground beneath us. We hurled punches, kicks and small ki blasts at each other, at such a rapid pace no one except the Z Warriors and Kami would be able to see us. My fists often collided with Cris, usually just with his forearm, or his leg or even his own clenched fist. For several seconds we darted across the length of the island, each of us exchanging blows, but rarely striking the other.

After a while, I zanzokened away from him, perching myself on a small rock off to Cris' right. He turned to me soon after and fired a small ki blast straight at me. I thought nothing of it, and was about to swat it away, when suddenly the blast swerved sharply in mid-air and blew open the rock I was standing on. The explosion threw me up horizontally, while I tried to control myself in the air. Cris tried to capitalize on my awkward position, rocketing towards me with a dynamite kick, but I knew he'd try such a thing.

I immersed myself in my ki and shot off away from the rapidly advancing Cris. He was un-able to keep pace with me of course, and I was soon a safe distance away. He and I faced off again, this time he was crouched in his fighting stance (the one Master Roshi taught him) while I hung my arms lazily off to the side. Suddenly he blurred out of view, and I lost track of him. Of course the natural place he'd zanzoken would be right behind me, so I swung a wild backhanded fist behind me, even though I never felt him there.

Once I realized I'd struck only air, I tried desperately to find him. In the few panicky seconds it took me to locate him, he'd already sprung. He'd been off to my right, but was now right behind me, so I'd practically given him position. Being the good little boy he was, he proceeded to kick me in the spine, roundhouse me in the neck and nail me with a hook to the temple.

It hurt, but it wasn't paralysing pain or anything, so I merely jumped forward, away from him, and then shot off into the air. I felt him flying behind me, so once I'd cleared my head of the pain, I looked behind me. He was there all right, struggling to keep up with my leisurely pace. I pushed all my power into my bukujutsu technique, speeding away from my opponent.

Once I felt he couldn't keep up with me, I abruptly changed directions, zanzokening right below Cris. He was shocked, if not stunned, and completely unprepared. I thrust my leg out, striking him hard in the abdomen. I heard the air rush from his lungs, and after a second or two I followed up the attack, flying above him and axe-handling him down towards the ground.

He managed to regain control of his body, and halt his swift descent. He landed calmly, stared up at me high above him, and then performed a manuever I'd never seen before.

He opened his mouth, as wide as humanly possible, condensed his ki into his chest, and then proceeded to fire it from his gaping jaw. The greenish beam caught me by surprise, and almost struck me. In fact if it weren't for my saiyan reflexes, I probably wouldn't have avoided the attack. It singed my body, but completely tore through my shirt and weighted clothing underneath. Only a tattered half of the shirt and clothes remained, so I ripped them off, and dropped them to the ground far beneath me.

While I was doing this though, Cris was wasting no time, zanzokening first off to my left, and then closer to my right, before finally appearing behind me. I admit, I didn't think he'd recover from my previous attack as fast as he did, so when he blew me away with two small ki blasts, zanzokened in front of me again, and drop kicked me into the air again, I wasn't really expecting it.

While I was gallantly soaring through the air, I felt him powering up two more ki blasts. As he was doing so though, I easily re-oriented myself, and was ready when he fired off a pair of blue ki beams in my direction.

I used the near blinding light produced by the beams to my advantage, making sure that I was out of view when I zanzokened away from the two beams. I appeared about ten feet above Cris, and before he knew it, I'd flown down to him, and kicked him savagely in the back. He was sent forward, but not too far, because I quickly zanzokened in front of him and crescent kicked him in the shoulder, plummeting him towards the earth and ungodly speeds.

Once he'd crashed into the ground with a nice little cracking sound, I slowly floated down to him. As I was doing so, he shakily stood up, and looked straight up towards me. I thought he would try to nail me with some sort of attack, but instead he just hopped back a few metres and allowed me room to land.

I dropped to the ground, crossed my arms and faced him. His face was bruised and his forearms were covered in welts, but he didn't seem to notice, he just stared at me, a sullen look on his face, and waited.

We stood there for several seconds, and I was beginning to think he forgot whom he was dealing with. I'd never been the first to break a stare-down, and as much as I respected Cris' mental discipline, I doubted he'd last as long as I did. I stood there patiently for a few minutes, as we stared into each other's eyes, when I noticed it. It was sort of like a throbbing that started in my back, slowly moving it's way downwards, lower and lower till it reached my tail-bone. I didn't flinch, for fear Cris might spring, but I wondered what was happening, the pain was getting worse.

Cris must've picked up on it, because he asked me "What's wrong Phoenix?"

I shook my head and replied "I don't know, feels like something's going to pop out of me." As soon as I said those words I knew what it was. I looked up into the sky and saw it. The moon. It was out, in full force, and shining it's brilliant, dull white glow over everything.

Something came over me, a blood lust, a fear, a hatred for all things living. I turned back down to Cris, and in a hoarse voice whispered out, "Run. Get away from here, NOW!" He looked at me oddly, but then a look of immense fear spread across his face. I knew all about Triono and how he'd nearly killed Cris when he went into Oozaru mode, it was something Cris would never forget.

Instead of running though, he flew over to me, placed a hand on my shoulder and said something, but I couldn't hear it. "Go away!" I screamed, but Cris remained. I fell to one knee on the ground, as the pain burned closer and closer to my rear end. The fire burning up inside of me felt like it was going to boil over soon. I swatted away Cris' hand and gave him one final warning. "Get the fuck out of here now. Get the others."

He nodded, but didn't go away; instead he looked up into the moon and began charging his ki into his hands. I knew what he was trying to do, but there wasn't enough time. The pain reached an apex, and I doubled over in agony. Just as soon as the pain maxed out though, it subsided, and I felt my tail rushing out of my spine. I screamed, louder than I ever had before in my life.

When I fused with all those dead saiyans so many years ago, I was "born" with a tail, but as soon as I arrived on earth Kami had it sliced off, I found out why later. Now it was back, and at maybe the worst possible time.

Cris continued to charge up his energy, but it was too late. The rage that'd been brimming up inside of me poured over, I couldn't hold it down any more. I shot up from the ground, and roundhouse kicked Cris in the sternum. I was going full power now, there would be no letting up, I needed to rip off that stupid ass red hair of his from his head.

He fell to the ground, trying to catch his wind, but I wouldn't let him. I brought my hands together and then hammered them into his skull. The blow smashed the ground beneath him and I was sure I heard a few of his bones crack. I laughed in joy, at the time, that sound was the only one I wanted to hear.

Cris whimpered underneath me, which just fuelled me even further. I elbowed him in the spine, snapping his head up from the ground, a scream of agony emitting from his throat. When he fell limp again, I flew away, not wanting to finish him, yet.

I landed in the middle of the field, and looked up. The pale light saturated my eyes, and soon I was bulging, my muscles, my entire body, convulsing and growing beyond anything I'd ever experienced before. As my body grew, so did my hate. I wanted, no I needed, to destroy Cris, to destroy Gideon, to destroy everything I knew in the world. I wasn't weak any longer, I wasn't held back by my body, my body was the source of my newfound power.

As my clothes tore off, and my body turned hairy, I roared with all my might, letting everyone on the damned planet know who I was… what I was. I was Phoenix, a saiyan warrior, and nothing would escape my wrath.

I finished my transformation, and stared down at Cris. He'd pulled himself up from the whole in the ground I'd created, but he was weak, I could feel the lack of life in his body. I roared again, stomping with my feet and crashing the ground underneath me. Cris just stared, a defeated look on his bloody face. I charged up a small amount of power, determined to finish the kid warrior.

He must've felt the power flowing through my body, because he tried to fly away at a turtle's pace. Futile. I finished powering up my energy and shoved it through my mouth, much like Cris had done just a little earlier. My memory played tricks on me. Wasn't that Cris my friend? My partner? No, I thought, the only Cris I knew was the one who needed to die.

As the beam incinerated the slow moving form of Cris, I roared again in victory, and set off to find fresh new victims to quench my insatiable hunger.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 Yukia 

A power surge like the one I felt that night could not go unnoticed. I'm sure that far below me on the mainland, children were waking from their sleep, screaming for their parents. I didn't blame them, in fact I almost felt like doing the same.

I was jolted out of my bed by the sudden jump in power. I sat up in silent terror, the power was almost five times as strong as Gideon, if somehow the Caprians had landed early, we were in deep shit. I searched frantically with my mind to make sure we were all still here. I quickly accounted for Gideon, Arsenia, Nikita, Karnai, and Kennard. I tried to fill in the blanks, but it took me a second to realize that I hadn't picked up Cris or Phoenix.

I searched harder, not wanting to admit any sort of loss yet. After a few seconds I registered something that vaguely resembled Phoenix's ki signature, only it was far more powerful than normal. I realized it was Phoenix who was the extremely powerful one. I darted to my window, and brushed the curtain aside.

The full moon shone back at me in the dark black sky and I cursed several times before heading outside. Once I brushed open the door, the darkness of the night made it nearly impossible to see the other forms roaming about in the courtyard. I knew who they were of course, if only by their ki signatures.

Gideon, Kennard and Karnai had already assembled in the center of the courtyard. I rushed to join them, simply gliding across the cold tiled floor Sky Palace. When I met with them, I realized they'd all changed into their training clothes, while I was still clothed only in the shorts I slept in. Before I embarrassed myself heavily, I zanzokened back to my room and quickly changed the clothes.

When I got back to the courtyard, everyone was there, except Kami, Cris and Phoenix. Nikita, without the use of a shower, was forced to let her beautiful blonde hair blow freely into the wind. I looked at her in silent awe for a second, before I realized she was staring back. I embarrassingly turned to face Gideon, but how could I help myself? She was so beautiful, how could a man not stare at her? Of course she was probably pissed at me for staring like that.

I didn't have much time to worry about what she thought though; Gideon brought me back to reality. "We've got a situation here." He stated, his voice coming out hoarsely because of his sudden awaking.

"No shit Sherlock." Came the reply from Arsenia. We all looked at him and Gideon gave him a dirty look. There'd been something going on for a while now between those two, since Krillin died. Arsenia seemed to resent everything Gideon said, and Gideon didn't seem to take any notice of Arsenia at all, which just fuelled the hatred even more.

Nikita walked over to Arsenia, and using her feminine powers, guided his cone of vision away from Gideon. She and the black haired warrior whispered back and forth. After a while, Arsenia seemed to relax, and then both he and Nikita turned back towards the group. Gideon continued. "From what I can tell, Phoenix has turned Oozaru and either accidentally or intentionally killed Cris." He paused for a second, letting the information soak in. "Now we can wish Cris back, but we have to do it soon, because we also have to wish his friend Triono back, both within two years." This would be easy, but getting the dragon balls within a week wouldn't be easy. Capsule Corp. protected the dragon radar very tightly, and it took Kami himself to pry it from their hands, peacefully.

"So," Gideon proceeded "Nikita, you and Kennard head off to Capsule Corp to get the radar, and get at least one ball before you head back." Nikita nodded, and turned to Kennard. He smiled, nodded, and together they ran full speed to the side of the palace, hopping off in unison, and firing off, ki's flaring up around them. I couldn't help but watch her move, total elegance.

"Yukia, Arsenia, Karnai. Let's go see if we can stop Phoenix." A daunting task to say the least, but something had to be done. Phoenix was powerful enough to probably destroy the entire surface of the planet if he was allowed to roam free.

I covered myself in my white-glowing ki, as those around me did the same. When we were adequately immersed, we all shot off into the sky in unison.

Phoenix's overly powerful ki signature was off to the northeast, and I recognized the place as where Cris and Phoenix often sparred when not in The Arena. How could they be stupid enough to not realize the moon was full tonight? I shook my head as we flew off at a few hundred kilometres a minute. Phoenix should've known his tail was bound to grow back at least once in his life, he was really only a few years old, his body seemed to have the regenerative ability of a young child too, he should've seen it coming. It was too late though, Cris was a goner, and we'd have to go through hell to bring him back now.

We reached the island in maybe twenty… thirty seconds, but landing on it was a whole different story. The island was shaking violently, causing waves to form heading outwards. It was really a sight to behold, but at the same time, it was really scary. I was sure if I wanted to I could've done that to the island, but Phoenix was just walking and shaking it, I really didn't want to be around right then.

I didn't have a choice though; Gideon and Karnai headed low to the ground, and shot off towards the center of the island, where Phoenix was located. Arsenia and I exchanged looks, before joining the two warriors in pursuit of the renegade saiyan. It wasn't hard to locate him; he was stomping around near a mountain range at the heart of the island. Just to get an idea of our upcoming opponents power, I asked, "Does anyone know what Phoenix's power level was within the last week or so?"

"I think I measured it at about 12,000 two days ago." Karnai replied from a little bit ahead of me. I did the math in a heartbeat. 120,000. That's what we were going to face, someone with a power level over 3 times that of Karnai's. We had no chance to beat him, that much was certain, but I knew we might have a chance to cut off his tail. If all else failed, we could simply blow up the moon. In that instant I really despised Kami's idea to wish it back a few years ago.

I didn't have time to think of bitching out Kami, we reached Phoenix and saw for the first time the extent of his power. Where as he could shake the entire island by walking, the epicentre of his earthquakes caused the land to almost literally tear itself apart. Rocks were falling off mountainsides, and often the mountains themselves were splitting apart. The sky had turned black from the smoke of several fires burning in the small forests near the mountains. The sounds of the crackling fire, the roaring of Phoenix, and the crashing mountains assaulted my eardrums, forcing me to cover my ears and try to block out the emissions. We crouched behind a small rock formation about twice as high as me.

The air had a pungent smell, mostly from the raging fires, but there was something else, something I couldn't put my finger on. I'm sure everyone else smelt it too, it was overpowering, almost a stench. Gideon looked at me and gave me a confident head nod. I returned it, and then repeated the procedure with Karnai and Phoenix. None of us were bailing, not now.

The large brown, Oozaru form of Phoenix was seemingly unaware of our presence, he just continued to trample the ground and fire huge ki beams from his mouth in seemingly random directions. Gideon noticed it too, and made sure we took advantage of it. "He doesn't see us yet. Let's set up a plan." Arsenia muttered something, but Karnai and I just looked at Gideon. "We have to get his tail, we get that, he reverts to normal." Seemed simple enough, but I knew it wouldn't be easy. "He's not going to just let us chop it off though, he has a natural instinct to protect it, so we need to set a trap and catch him in it." We all nodded, waiting to see what the ambush would be.

Gideon pondered for a few seconds, before finishing the idea. "Yukia," he said, turning to me. "you know the Special Beam Cannon right?" I nodded an affirmative, and he grinned. "I heard Piccolo used that to blow up the moon a while back." Karnai smiled at the mentioning of his famous ancestor. "I also heard it takes a while to charge up." I nodded again. It was true; I'd need almost three minutes to charge up enough power to take out the moon.

"All the better." Gideon replied, a smile spreading across his dark face. "You're going to be the bait, ok?" He asked. Of course he gave me no chance to think of any answer other than 'yes' continuing on "While your powering up your Special Beam Cannon, Karnai and I will head behind him and try and make a run for his tail. Arsenia, you go above him and if we miss, you go for it." Arsenia nodded, and Gideon looked at each of in turn. He patted me on the shoulder and gave another small nod.

I smiled back, and took in a deep breath. There were butterflies quelling up in my stomach, and a whole lot of fear racing through my heart. I really didn't want the job of human bait, but I guess I was the smallest, and could make a quick escape if I had to. Right before Gideon left, he purged the thought of running from my mind. "If we don't make it, just fire the beam cannon at the moon and blow it up."

I dropped my head and shuddered, it was all or nothing I guess. Arsenia floated up slowly, keeping away from the direct line-sight of the raging Phoenix. Gideon and Karnai headed left on opposite sides of the rock we were behind, one heading to the left, the other to the right. Rather than flying and giving off ki, they stayed on the ground, running a wide flank on Phoenix.

The large Oozaru beast was "walking" away off to the west, crashing another mountain with his gigantic fists. Once my three partners were in position, I closed my eyes, and tried to visualize what I was going to do. I couldn't, I was too tired to think clearly, so I just hopped up onto the rock formation I'd previously been hiding behind. I brought my index and middle fingers from my right hand up to my forehead, spread my legs, and began charging the necessary energy.

The Special Beam Cannon was unlike most other attacks; it required a special form of ki manipulation to perform. The energy from the Cannon didn't just come from inside the user, but from all around them as well. It also required the complete focus of the user to direct and control the energy into just two fingers, which is why the beam takes so long to power up. If I was to use three or four fingers for the Cannon, it could produce an erratic beam that could end up incinerating everything within a two-mile radius, including me.

My mind was already clear from lack of sleep, so I just began powering up. I used a small trick I'd learned from Karnai to use the pores on my skin to suck in ki from the living things around me. My muscles began bulging, simply because of the energy that was rushing through them. Sparkles of pure energy visible only as yellow light went off all around me, until it seemed like I was a live wire sticking out of a wall. That's what finally got Phoenix's attention.

He caught me out of the corner of his eye, and almost instantly he stopped roaring and turned his huge body to face me. My heart started pounding seemingly through my chest, until I was sure it was going to pop out of my body. I stared right into the furry mug of my friend, and just kept charging. I was pulling in energy at a very slow pace, but it couldn't be helped. Phoenix stared at me for a few seconds, and I thought he might've recognized me for a second, but then he just roared and began trampling off in my direction.

His heavy, crashing steps rattled the rock I was standing on, and I lost my concentration for a second in order to balance myself. I could see Gideon and Karnai around Phoenix, and almost felt like shouting "Hurry up and try it already!" But I restrained myself for a while at least. Phoenix covered the kilometre distance between he and I in an amazing time considering his size. In fact, his speed seemed only slightly hampered by his huge form, his legs still moved incredibly fast.

When he was about a hundred feet away from me, Karnai tried his luck. He shot from the ground behind Phoenix and to his right, flying full speed, his white ki gathered in a circle around him. He had his right hand enveloped in slicing ki energy, no doubt to sear the stub of Phoenix's tail when he got in range. He shot straight at the base of the tail, at an amazing speed; I don't think either Karnai or I thought the target itself (the tail) would be what caught him.

Right as Karnai was raising his hand and closing in on the tail, a brown swirl of fur appeared out of nowhere and caught him, stopping him dead in his tracks. It was the end of the tail, which no one had bothered to look for. It had wrapped itself around Karnai's body, and was crushing the life out of the Namek warrior. Phoenix immediately stopped running and turned his head to face Karnai, letting out a slight roar while doing so. Karnai struggled to free himself from the tail, but had no luck, it was simply too strong. Phoenix continued to close the tail tighter and tighter, devastating Karnai's seemingly weak body.

Once Gideon saw Karnai had been stopped, he went to work. He ran full speed from behind and to the left of Phoenix, gliding along the ground effortlessly at an amazing clip. Instead of trying to get in close to slice the tail though, he had a small ki ball ready in his right hand, and when he got a clear sighting of the base of the tail, he let it fly.

Up till then, I thought Phoenix in Oozaru had been fast, but what he did to avoid Gideon's attack was beyond my comprehension. Right as Gideon's blast was just feet away from it's target, Phoenix jumped up in the air. Not just into the air, but high in the air; at least 500 metres, and while doing so he performed at least four back-flips, moving backwards as well, so when he landed, he had Gideon in front of him, right in his sights.

Gideon floated in the air, amazed, a dumbfounded look on his face. I too was stunned, but I didn't let it stop me from charging up the Special Beam Cannon some more. Gideon though, let the amazing performance get to his head, and as Phoenix was prepping his energy, Gideon just continued to float. Phoenix roared and exhaled a huge pink energy blast from his mouth. The strike was perfectly aimed, and it hit Gideon at full force, hurling the black skinned human into the ground; destroying a large portion of the land around him. The beam held for nearly a second, but once it detracted, there was a gigantic smoking crater where before there had only been green grass and dirt. Gideon lay in the fissure, unmoving; a smouldering piece of human flesh. I sensed his ki still though, so he was alive at least, but that blast nearly ended the muscle-laden warrior's life.

So both Gideon and Karnai were out of the picture, and it was up to Arsenia now. The whole time Gideon and Karnai had gone at Phoenix, he'd been prepping one of Krillin's old moves, the Destructo Disc. I smiled, that attack would cut through the tail like it was nothing. The attack was now ready, resting on Arsenia's outstretched hand, and Phoenix didn't seem to notice while Arsenia slowly floated down from the sky towards Phoenix's saiyan appendage. When Arsenia was within twenty metres, he hurled the yellow circle of energy towards the tail.

Either Phoenix had been playing with Arsenia the whole time, or he was quick enough to see the attack and dodge it before it struck. In any case, he simply hopped forward, away from the Disc, and the yellow attack simply drove itself into the ground, shredding the rocks, dirt and grass that lay on top.

Arsenia floated in the air stunned, just like Gideon. As he hung there, Phoenix turned around to face him, and stared straight at Arsenia before firing another huge ki blast from his mouth. This one was badly aimed, and Arsenia easily dodged it, causing it to go hurling into a mountain. Ground zero on the mountain was actually incinerated by the blast, while the rest of the rock-face was simply shattered into a million pieces.

Phoenix screamed an unearthly holler, and was about to try again when Arsenia came to his senses and shot off away from Phoenix, at full speed. Phoenix trotted off after the human, keeping up with Arsenia fairly easily. I'd nearly forgotten about Karnai, being crushed by Phoenix's tail, but the saiyan certainly didn't. He stopped his running, letting Arsenia think he'd given up, wound up his tail for a few seconds, and then pivoted his hips, getting a ton of momentum, and releasing Karnai from his tail's grasp. The Namek warrior went flying at speeds nearing sub-sonic, and was on a direct crash-course for Arsenia.

The human spotted Karnai coming though, and flew straight into the Namek's travel path. He prepped himself against the air, straining his ki, and when Karnai came, he was ready. The green-skinned fighter collided with Arsenia, and sent them both flying a few metres, but Arsenia fought it, and managed to stop them both within a second or two.

Karnai's body was nearly limp, so Arsenia was forced to hold onto it in mid-air. Arsenia shook Karnai a few times and yelled at the Namek repeatedly in an attempt to wake him up. While he was doing so though, Phoenix pounced, jumping forward faster than I could fly. He was on Arsenia before the Z warrior could react.

The giant ape brought up a humungous paw, and swatted both Arsenia and Karnai downward, into a formation of boulders. Their bodies crashed into the blocks of rock at suicidal speeds, and I winced when I heard the cracking of the rocks and the breaking of the bodies of my friends.

I felt Karnai's already weakening ki signature fade even more, while Arsenia's took a run for the worse as well. A cloud of smoke went up where the two had crash-landed, and shrapnel was sent all over the island. Phoenix roared at his seeming victory, and stomped forward a few paces towards Arsenia and Karnai.

He was almost upon them, and I considered ditching the Special Beam Cannon to aid my comrades when suddenly a huge ki ball came out of nowhere and struck itself straight into Phoenix's back. The Oozaru took a few dazed steps forward before regaining his composure. He turned to face whatever it was that had struck him, and he came head on with Gideon.

The human floated in the air, and I realized it was Gideon himself who had rushed into Phoenix. He'd covered himself in his ki and flew full power into Phoenix's back. It was a technique we liked to call a power ram. Gideon had used almost all his power in the attack though, and was hanging in the air like a sitting duck. He was only about 20 metres away from Phoenix, and had no power to move.

Phoenix took advantage of Gideon's weakened state, bringing his massive hands together high in the air, and then dropping them down on Gideon. The hammer-blow sent Gideon crashing into the ground again, a circle of dust exploding from the ground upon impact. Gideon laid on the ground again, immobile for a second time.

Phoenix roared in triumph yet again before raising his foot a good twenty yards and holding it there. He looked straight at Gideon, then turned his head and looked at me. Our eyes interlocked, and for a brief moment, I could see the rage in his heart. Phoenix didn't want to do all this destruction, he needed to do it. The saiyan side of him needed to fight, to kill, to destroy, and he'd been suppressing that. Until this night, Phoenix had been trying to live like the rest of us, when in fact he wasn't one of us at all, he was something much more special.

Just as soon as all this hit me, Phoenix bellowed and brought his foot crashing down towards Gideon's unmoving body. I closed my eyes, waiting for the crushing blow to hit, when suddenly there was a flare of ki and a rush of air blowing by my face.

I opened my eyes, and saw Phoenix stepping down with all his weight, but he wasn't touching the ground or Gideon. There was a white light, like a burning fire under Phoenix's foot, and I recognized it as Arsenia. He'd surrounded himself in ki and was using all his strength to push Phoenix's foot up and away from he and Gideon. I understood now, Arsenia had flown away from the wreckage of his crash with the rocks, and saved Gideon's life.

I smiled again; Arsenia had put aside his petty differences with Gideon to save a teammates life. I cheered him silently as he pushed with all his power in an attempt to stop Phoenix. Arsenia screamed, so loudly I heard him even though we were at least a few hundred metres apart. With one gigantic surge of power, he hurled Phoenix's foot to the side.

When the ape foot touched the ground, Arsenia collected Gideon's body in his arms and flew off. Phoenix wasted no time in keeping pursuit, trampling off after Arsenia's glowing white trail of Ki. The Oozaru beast fired several ki beams from his mouth, but Arsenia was far enough away to dodge most of them. The human zigged and zagged over the island, often making a circle so that he wouldn't lead Phoenix too far away from the Special Beam Cannon and I.

After a while, Gideon came back to life and Arsenia let him go fly by himself so Phoenix would have two people to chase. The saiyan was split between the two targets, and roared in anger. As soon as he did, a large yellow ball of ki appeared out of the sky. I thought it would strike Phoenix, but instead it stopped right in front of his face and hung there.

The big ape looked quizzically at the ball of energy, like a baby stares at their mobile above their crib. The ball of energy darted left, then right, and Phoenix's eyes and body followed. The ball moved away and Phoenix followed it. Arsenia and Karnai flew away, and set down on a pair of rocks in order to rest for a while and regain some energy.

Phoenix tried grasping the sphere with his paws, but it shot away and the beast strode after it again. I sensed that someone near me was controlling the ki, so I searched around. It couldn't be Arsenia or Gideon, and I hadn't picked up Nikita or Kennard heading our way, so that left… Karnai. I looked back to the rocks he'd been embezzled in, and saw him standing near the rubble, his right hand outstretched, his left grasping his right wrist. I recognized the attack instantly, the Tsuihidan, which Karnai had perfected just a few months ago. I still was unable to perform the attack, mainly because I'd been practicing the Special Beam Cannon the whole time.

I kept charging the Cannon to its full power, indeed it was almost ready. The air itself around me seemed almost alive, as crackles of ki and electricity sprayed themselves in every direction. I almost had enough power, and had taken all I could from the things around me, all the energy I needed now would have to come from myself. My muscles felt weak and tired from the strain, but I kept charging, nothing would stop me now.

Karnai continued to lead Phoenix around like a dog on a leash, while Arsenia and Gideon had recovered quite a bit of energy. Karnai's energy ball left Phoenix's back to the two human warriors, and they pounced on an opportunity to strike the tail.

Both of them rocketed away from the rocks they'd been on, and both had energy blasts powered up and aimed towards Phoenix's tail. The saiyan proved himself a worthy opponent yet again though, and right as they were about to fire, he turned and jumped straight towards them.

Gideon tried averting to the left, and Arsenia directly away, but Phoenix caught one of them in each of his paws and began crushing the life out of them. I heard both of their screams, but the cries of agony were droned out by Phoenix's roar. Fear and anger raced through my heart, I really hadn't expected Phoenix to grab them like that, and now they were being crushed out of existence.

The turn left Karnai's attack behind Phoenix now though, so the Namek tried to take advantage, sending the orb flying towards Phoenix's tail.

Before the attack could do any damage though, Phoenix's tail swept the attack harmlessly to the side, crashing it into another mountain and causing it to explode before Karnai could alter it's direction.

In the two seconds it took to swat away Karnai's attack, all hope drained from me. I could hear Gideon's bones cracking under the pressure of Phoenix's grip. I could feel Arsenia's pleas for help vibrate through my bones. I could smell Karnai's sweat as he flew off in a futile attempt to save his friends. I couldn't take it, I couldn't just watch Phoenix do this to everyone, not in my life.

I screamed. I just screamed, the loudest I think I ever had in my life. I screamed for Gideon and Arsenia, for Karnai, for Cris, for myself, but most of all for Phoenix. I couldn't stand to see someone I'd gotten to know so well over the last two years turn into a raging beast with no thought but to kill. Saiyan blood-lust be damned, he wasn't going to hurt another friend of mine, much less himself.

I screamed loud and long, maybe 20 seconds, before I got Phoenix's attention. He turned his head and neck to me first, with seemingly newfound interest. I ended the scream and spat in his direction. He dropped Arsenia and Gideon to the ground. Karnai flew after them and managed to catch them before they touched the ground.

Phoenix must've thought I was trying to match him in a roaring contest, because he screamed right back at me, so loudly the rocks beneath my feet cracked slightly. He then rushed at me, running full speed. He closed the small gap between us in no time, but just as he did, I finished powering up my Special Beam Cannon.

I smiled, then began chuckling, until finally I was laughing my head off. Phoenix stopped about ten yards away from me and tilted his head, staring at me strangely. I tilted my head back towards the sky in laughter, my two fingers still on my forehead, and looked at the moon.

I could see the small craters on it, the small colony of robotic mining depots Capsule Corp. had put up there, the frozen lakes that littered the land; indeed, I could see it all, and then I destroyed it.

I whipped up the fully charged right hand, fingers extended, and screamed "Special Beam Cannon FIRE!"

I watched as the thin beam of circular energy made it's way to the moon, and gazed intently as it tore the hunk of rock to shreds. Phoenix roared, nothing new, and I just kept laughing. I fell back onto my rock, and stretched out in exhaustion.

I craned my neck up, and watched as Phoenix's large form shrunk. It took nearly ten seconds for him to reach his regular size, but when he did, a rush of fresh air invaded my lungs. I didn't want to move, but I knew a lot of people would need to be sent to regeneration chambers pretty soon, so I sat up, and hopped down to the ground.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16 Triono 

Death.

One single word, that struck fear into the hearts of every single man, woman and child. No one in their right mind could say that they did not fear death, fear their own mortality. Death is the root of all fear in the world, and the sooner you realize this, the sooner it conquers you.

To me though, death was un-consequential, a mere inconvenience that would take at most a year to right. The dragon balls made this possible. Indeed death had no hold on me, and I relished this fact.

Death was my specialty though. Creating it, conquering it, and ultimately doing without it. Just a while ago I'd been given a weapon with which to excel at it even more.

When Krillin had come to King Kai's small lump of green a few months ago, he'd brought with him a bag, and within it a few items. Among them was a long bladed samurai type sword, which King Kai had given me to train with, and later on take back to Earth to use against the Caprians. The sword was thin, silvery-white, pointed on only one side, and extremely heavy.

It seemed like one of King Kai's many hidden talents was his mastery of the blade. He'd taught me how to control every aspect of the sword, so after only a few weeks I'd mastered it's basic uses. (ex. Slashing, blocking, stabbing, sheathing etc.) A little while after that he taught me a technique called the Doominator, which was very similar to the Triple Strike, except with a sword. The technique was fairly easy to perform since I'd previously mastered the Triple Strike, but the next attack King Kai taught me was much harder to learn.

It was called the Dragon Shock, and it was performed like so: The user holds the sword at shoulder height, legs bent, blade sticking straight forward, and faces the opponent. Once ready, they zanzoken in front of the target, and then quickly zanzoken behind them. They then repeatedly zanzoken literal circles around whoever it is their fighting, confusing their opponent beyond words. Occasionally they would stop and quickly slash their enemy with the heavy sword, but the trick was to not let the attack slow down the zanzokening.

The attack was truly a test of physical capability, and I had still been unable to master it after nearly two months of sword training. I came close to finishing it once or twice, but I usually just ran out of energy, collapsing to the ground. I was walking the path I hadn't wanted to, doing physical training a lot more than my usual mental discipline.

Almost luckily though, my training with King Kai was nearly complete. In the five months I'd spent with him, I'd mastered every technique he'd taught me, save one, and I'd become incredibly powerful as well. I couldn't wait to see what Cris would think of me when we met again, no doubt he would be impressed beyond belief. Little did I know, I'd be seeing him all too soon.

I was beginning to practice Dragon Shock, by the tree on the small green planet, when King Kai walked up to me, and asked me something. "Triono, what do you think you've learned from me in the past five months?"

I stopped on the spot I was on, placed my sword into its leather sheath on my belt, and thought about my question. King Kai seemed to be serious for the first time in a while, and it was kind of upsetting. After a few seconds I answered, "Well, I've learnt a bunch of different ki attacks. I've mastered how to use my sword, my body, and my mind." I frowned slightly, thinking of more to say. "I've learnt how to fight beyond my wildest dreams." Bubbles came out from behind the house to my left, and that reminded me of something else. "I've learnt to respect everything I see, not just what I think is worthy of my respect." King Kai nodded, a grim look on his face.

"Well," he started, before taking a deep sigh. "that's about all I can expect to teach a student. So it's with a happy heart I can tell you that the Z warriors down on Earth have almost collected all the dragon balls, and are going to wish you back; sometime tomorrow probably." As he told me, a rush of excitement ripped through my veins, and I smiled broadly. I'd be going back, to meet all my new allies, to train for the Caprians, to----- wait a second, I wasn't supposed to be wished back for another three months, so why was I going back so soon?

"King Kai, wasn't I supposed to be wished back in a few months? Why am I going back so soon?" King Kai looked at me, and a glare struck me from his sunglasses, causing me to squint.

"Well, there's a few reasons." He hung his head slightly and sighed before continuing. "First of all, if you go back now, you'll be back in time to start your heavy gravity training." That seemed like a good idea, considering how strong I'd gotten under 10 times gravity. "And, uh, well, there was an accident, back on Earth."

Like any inquisitive little saiyan, I immediately asked, "What kind of accident?"

"Oh, nothing you have to worry about." I thought King Kai knew me better than that. No way he was gonna leave me hanging like that.

"C'mon, tell me. I gotta know."

He just shrugged, and then replied. "Well, one of the Z warriors died."

I sighed. Now one of my allies would be behind in his training when he got back to earth, which could be a big weakness when the Caprians arrived. A question suddenly popped in my head. "Who was it?"

King Kai immediately tensed up, his head snapping up, his shoulders becoming rigid, and his hands trembling. I knew right then that I'd gotten King Kai right where he didn't want to be. When he didn't respond after a few seconds, I kept at it. "Well? Who is it?"

King Kai winced, almost as if he was in pain before whispering out a name. I strained my ears to hear it, but his voice was just too quite. I smirked; he actually thought he could elude me. I looked straight into his eyes and shook my head. He smiled, shrugged, and answered. "It was Cris."

A wave of emotions overpowered me, causing me to fall to the ground. Cris was dead, and now I was going back to take his place. The thought scared me, but worse still was when I realized with Krillin and Cris dead, I had no friends on the living plane. Did I actually consider Cris a friend? After everything we'd been through, up until I was killed, did I really respect him enough to call him a friend?

Yes, I did, he was a friend, maybe even my best friend. I shook my head at the pure absurdity of the thought. Just a year ago we were heated rivals with totally different ethics, but now we shared a common goal, and we would be forced to share a master, and a way of life.

Share a master, I thought, that didn't sound right. "King Kai," I began, tilting my head up to the blue-skinned "will Cris come to train under you?"

The martial arts master swallowed deeply before replying, "Yes, he should be arriving any day now."

I bowed my head again, and began to think. Cris was my friend, but somewhere deep down within me I needed to do something. I needed to show him up, to match and beat him at his own game, to prove to him, to me, and to everyone else that I was superior. I wanted to train alongside him and show that I could match him in every aspect of the word. I stood up, stared straight at King Kai and said, "I'm staying."

His jaw dropped, his beady eyes opened up underneath his glasses, and asked, "What?"

I stated flatly "I'm staying. I'm going to stay here and train with you."

King Kai shook his head at a rapid pace almost yelling out "No, no, no, no. You see the dragon balls don't come back for another year, so they have to wish one of you back right now and the other has to wait another year. If they wait any longer, the Caprians will have arrived, and we won't be able to wish one of you back."

"I don't care, I'm staying." I sounded like an immature little kid, but I couldn't come up with a counter-argument.

"But Triono, Cris is already running down snake way, we can't wish him back in the time necessary. Wishing you back will let you speed up your training considerably, this is what's best for you, and for Cris."

"No!" I screamed back at King Kai. "Staying here and training with Cris is what's best for me." It was true too. The entire time back home, all Cris and I ever did for each other was motivate one another. Most of the time he was pushing me to get stronger and faster, but I knew that I was the one reason he trained later on, I was the only one who could quench the challenge he desired. Now we would push each other once again, only this time it wasn't towards our petty differences, it was for the fate of the galaxy. "Trust me."

King Kai stared at me blankly, and I returned the favour. "One of you will eventually have to be wished back, and the other will be forced to stay here while the entire battle goes down."

"Then let whoever shows the greatest increase in a few months be the one that gets wished back." The idea had just suddenly popped in my head, but it instantly made sense. With a motivating factor like life at stake, we would surely drive each other to our limits. "You have to have faith in me King Kai, I know what I'm doing."

He dropped his head, his mind saturated in deep thought for seemingly hours "Alright Triono, if you really think that's what's best, let me contact Cris and see if he agrees."

I opened my mouth in protest, but realized I wouldn't be able to convince King Kai to not talk to Cris without revealing my little training scheme. I closed my mouth as King Kai turned to face snake way, his antennae whipping in different directions, and whispered to myself "It's up to you now Cris."

King Kai's black antennae flashed on and off several times, and I managed to pick up some of the telekinetic waves passing between the two. After a while the emissions ceased, and King Kai dropped his head.

I smiled, he'd said yes, and King Kai was pissed. The black clothed master turned around and confirmed my assumption before picking up Bubbles and heading back to the house slowly. Good old Cris, I knew he'd agree, in fact he probably even came up with the same realization I did. We were a lot alike in some ways.

I yelled over to King Kai "Make sure you tell Kami on Earth not to wish either of us back!" The little man made some sort of hand gesture I couldn't make out before walking into the house. I smiled; I knew King Kai wouldn't let me down. There was a slight rumbling in my stomach and I yelled again "Oh yeah, King Kai, when is supper?"


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Kami 

There was only one place on the planet I called home that made me feel truly alive. Looking down over everything that was mine, everything that I was given to protect, somehow made me feel complete.

I remember Mr. Popo telling me when I first took over the role of Kami that my predecessor, the great Piccolo, would spend hours standing in the very spot I always stood, surveying his land much like I did.

I stood there, on the edge of Sky Palace, looking down upon all that lush green and blue that was called Earth. I sighed deeply, my old body heaving stiffly as well. There was so much going on right then, I didn't know if there was one specific thing that I should watch first.

So much to do, I thought, and so little time. Two years, that was all we had left, two years to prepare fully for the Caprians. I knew my students were training their absolute hardest, but I had a small nagging feeling somewhere within me that we just wouldn't be ready.

I quelled the thought quickly, and decided to concentrate on each of my trainees in turn.

I started with Gideon, seeking out the familiar ki signature of my most powerful human trainee. I picked it up right where it had been for the past week, off in the southeast islands. He was on one of the islands with a large gravity field generator, and a few other pieces of training equipment. I was pretty sure he was training under 10 times earth normal gravity, although I couldn't be certain. I knew for sure though that Gideon had been running himself ragged on that island, training his absolute hardest, both physically and mentally. I was glad for this of course, but I was also sort of worried. If there was one thing we wouldn't need when the Caprians arrived, it was a tired out Gideon. I had a small worry that he was wearing himself thin, that he would break down when the Caprians arrived, and that scared me a whole lot.

He was doing well that day though, full of energy and life, so I continued onto Yukia and Kennard. The two were also in the southeast islands, but a lot closer to Master Roshi and the Turtle House. The two had elected to spar together, while also using the gravity device provided by Capsule Corp. They'd been hard at it for a few days, first letting each other grow accustomed to the newfound gravity. When I looked upon them at that specific time, they were both meditating, giving their bruised and battered bodies a much needed break.

I smiled, and moved onto Nikita. The young blonde girl had decided to train alone in Capsule Corp. headquarters in Satan City. She'd been devastated after hearing about Cris' death, and had spent a lot of time alone since then. I didn't know whether or not they'd shared some sort of bond (or something more), and I didn't really want to find out, so I kept my distance from her. When she'd requested training at Capsule Corp. headquarters, I arranged it and she seemed slightly happier. I wasn't worried about her though, I knew she was tough, she'd pull through. I found her practicing ki attacks in the west wing of the main Capsule Corp. building, shooting the streams of ki energy into highly absorptive pieces of plexiglas that could absorb almost any type of energy bombardment. Capsule Corp. had developed the glass a few years back, and it allowed my students to train much more effectively with their ki attacks.

I didn't have to look very far for Arsenia, he was almost right below Karin tower and Sky Palace, training. He'd set up his gravity field in a large grassland a few kilometres away from Sky Palace. He never came up to talk to Mr. Popo, or I, so it left me wondering why he would want to remain so close to Sky Palace. I shook my head, the human Arsenia was indeed a wonder to behold. When I looked upon him, he was just zanzokening around under the heavy gravity, going on until he collapsed from exhaustion.

After Arsenia, I turned my attention to Karnai. The Namek warrior had decided to take a Capsule Corp. space pod, and train while orbiting the earth. He'd told me that it helped him to avoid the many distractions that were found on Earth, which would only slow down his training. I spotted him flying over the axis of the equator, and felt his ki signature fading and then regrouping rapidly, then I noticed there were in fact two of his ki signatures. For a second I stood confounded at the edge of the Sky Palace before realising my stupidity. He had been using his Split Form technique to spar with himself. I shook my head, I was getting slower in my old age. He seemed to be doing fine though, neither of the ki signatures overpowering the other for more than a few seconds, so I continued on.

Phoenix was the only earthbound Z warrior left, and the one I was most worried about. He'd spent every single second of his time alone on the island where Cris and he had begun sparring that one fateful night. He was completely silent throughout, not speaking more than two words to me afterwards, except for to get his gravity machine. The death of Cris seemed to sullen the entire life out of the saiyan warrior, which left a grave feeling in my heart. Through past experiences with the saiyans, I knew that their will to fight was everything, without it, they were nothing. Phoenix had no will, no drive, nothing with which to motivate him any harder. While the rest of the warriors treated the gravity training as a new test, Phoenix just trudged through it like he had with all the other training.

I couldn't imagine what was running through Phoenix's head, and I didn't really want to, but I needed to know if I could count on him when the Caprians arrived. After Cris' death he'd shown hesitation towards the upcoming battle, almost _fear_, which is a word never mentioned in the same sentence as a saiyans will to fight.

In any case, Phoenix was going to be a handful, and sooner or later I'd have to talk to him about what was wrong.

When I sensed him training on the island, he was barely working, just lifting some of the free-weights he'd brought with him to the island. An enigma to say the least, I forced myself to put him behind me and moved onto my two remaining trainees.

Cris and Triono had been together on King Kai's planet for under a week, and King Kai had been keeping me updated on their progress. After just a few days, the two had already begun a fierce competition. Cris was determined to catch up to Triono, training wise, to prove that he was the better warrior. He seemed to be succeeding too, already catching the hairy monkey Bubbles and most recently hitting Gregory with one of King Kai's heaviest hammers. King Kai had begun to teach Cris the Triple Strike, and had told me just a few days earlier that he was considering trying to teach Cris the legendary Kaioken attack. Apparently the renowned martial arts master was amazed by Cris' work ethic (similar to Goku's he'd said), and his unwillingness to give into any challenge. King Kai had begun tempering a sword for Cris to train with, similar to Triono's. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps Cris was a special kind of warrior. After all, he'd been only the third person to master the full power of the Kamehameha, had increased more from a year of training than any of the other warriors previously under my training, and was now perhaps the only being in the universe who could match up to Goku training-wise.

As hard as Cris was pushing though, Triono was nearly matching him every step along the way. The saiyan had mastered King Kai's sword technique, the Dragon Shock, and was now beginning to learn the final move of King Kai's rapier repertoire: the Soaring Heavens Flash.

It seemed to me that the two fed off each other to an extent I hadn't seen since Goku and Vegeta. Neither one would accept any mercy from the other, both of them wanted to be better than the other.

Right now, Triono was far stronger than Cris, both physically and mentally, but the human was already beginning to make up ground. I didn't know who would come out on top, but the loser was going to face at least another year with King Kai after the other left.

King Kai was sleeping at the specific time I was looking for Cris and Triono, and I decided not to wake the legendary joker.

So each of my trainees seemed to be doing fine, at least so far. I knew deep down they'd each deal with their fate in their own way, and all I could do was aid them along the way.

I leaned onto my long, wooden cane, and peered out over all that I oversaw. The endless green fields, the crystal clear lakes, the sweet tasting air, the clear blue sky, it was all mine, mine to protect. I sighed again, my old green body cramping with the movement, a slight soreness running through my back, and closed my eyes. Birds chirping, waterfalls rushing, hover cars flying, wind breezing slowly by my ears; these were the sounds of life, of existence, of everything I was born to keep safe.

I opened my eyes again and took in one last vision. This was it, this was life.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18 Phoenix 

The rays of powerful heat beat down on my body, wave after unending wave, like a tide on the shore of a beach. The light immersed everything; nothing could escape it. My mouth was dry; the air sapped of all moisture, the sea all around me itself was almost boiling. High above me was the cause of all the unease, the bright orb of light that we called the sun. At that point in time, it wasn't the heavy gravity I was under that was my main enemy, it was that sphere, millions of kilometres away from me.

Still, there was no other place I wanted to be. The sun was a good thing; its presence meant that it was daytime, that the darkness of night would not rear its ugly head. The night time was the only thing I feared anymore, it housed nothing but evil and hate.

So I trained hard during the daytime, and during the night, I slept. Sleep was my only refuge from the night, it let me block out the insanity. I didn't even have dreams to remind me of my last night awake on my island. I used to have dreams, long ago, but now that I was Phoenix, I didn't have them any more, probably part of the Saiyan mind.

So being a Saiyan did have perks after all, that much was true, but so far being a member of the species had done little for me, other than cause pain and anguish. After all, I hadn't chosen to be a Saiyan, it kind of chose me. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would've chosen to die on that piece of rock that used to be planet Vegeta.

The powers bestowed upon me so long ago felt like nothing but a burden, a weight upon my shoulders that could break me at will. I was scared of that weight breaking me, of sending me in another rage of source less anger and destruction, like that night with Cris.

I was genuinely scared of my power, of its ability to bend my will to do it's bidding, almost like it had control over me, instead of visa-versa. This was the reason that I wasn't trying my absolute hardest to increase my strength; I was worried my power would eventually exceed my ability to control.

So while all my friends went all out in their bids to become more powerful, I lagged behind, scared of my own power. It was almost funny… I was supposed to be the last remaining Saiyan, the pinnacle of pride and fighting spirit, and here I was, afraid that my power might hurt someone.

I knew I couldn't lag too far behind, or else I'd be the weak link when the Caprians arrived. I mentally knew that Cris would be back eventually, that we'd talk it over, and make up for what I did, but somewhere deeper within me, I couldn't forgive myself for what I'd done to him. In only four months we'd become best friends, just to have me kill him off. I couldn't excuse myself for that, and I'd made a vow never to let that happen to a friend of mine again.

I shook my head. I knew I had to stop thinking about Cris, it would only screw me up in the end, and I didn't have time for that. I looked out over the vast expanse of the island I was beginning to call a home, and restarted my training.

I turned to face a large boulder-like rock off to my right, bent my legs slightly, and then quickly zanzokened. When I reappeared, I was right in front of the rock, with my right hand curled into a tight fist by my side. I struck the rock with all my might, causing it to shatter straight down its axis, before eventually breaking in several directions. Splinters of red-brown rock flew all around my head and body, but I didn't have time to stand idly and watch the destruction. I zanzokened again, this time to a large, bridge like rock behind me and to my left.

I again swung and devastated the rock face, this time causing the small mountain-like rock to crumble to the ground. Before the first pieces were falling though, I had zanzokened to another rock about half the size of me. This time I quickly brought up my right leg and then swept it down at full force into the torso of the rock. It split straight down the middle, sending pieces of rock flying on both sides of my feet.

Again I zanzokened right after striking, reappearing beside a high rock, and driving my elbow deep into it's hard surface. I continued zanzokening around the small island, until I had broken, shattered, or otherwise demolished every piece of rock within the heavy gravity zone. It took nearly five minutes to lay waste to the landscape, but it proved to be worth it; I was winded and gasping for air at the end, always a good sign when training.

I felt like taking a break, but I knew that wouldn't help me in the long run, it'd just allow time for memories, bad memories, to surface again. Instead I quickly flew over to the gravity machine to see how it was doing.

The gravity device itself was simply a small (two feet high) oval like metallic object with a bunch of switches and control pads on the sides. It's silvery siding reflecting brightly, especially under the bright light of the sun, and whenever it was in use, it hummed slightly.

I dropped right next to the machine, and bent down to it. The small liquid display screen on the right side of the device read "10", which was what I'd set it at. In a few days, I'd have to up it to about 20 times normal gravity to continue the training. It'd been less than two weeks since we'd all begun our gravity training, and I knew the likes of Gideon and Karnai had probably already increased the gravity level. I didn't mind, I'd rather take it nice and slowly, after all, it didn't matter how fast we progressed, just as long as we did progress.

After I was done checking the gravity level, I moved onto the field width. The gravity device had originally been made to encompass the size of a small Capsule Corp. pod, such as the one Goku and Vegeta used to train for the androids so many years ago. Since then though, Capsule Corp. had derived how to control the field, and make it expand over anywhere from 10 metres to a few kilometres. The generators we were using were the latest models, able to create a circle of gravity 10 kilometres in diameter. I'd set the field to only 6 kilometres, so any birds or other animals wouldn't accidentally be crushed under the gravity field. I'd been using part of my ki to ward away the animals when I had the gravity field activated, but at 10 kilometres it was nearly impossible to direct every single one of them away. Already all the plant, grass and insect life within my field was crushed and dead, so when I left the training spot, there'd be a patch of dead land waiting to be renewed.

The gravity field was still at the right size, so I stood up, turned towards the ocean and flew over to the coast. I plopped down on the small beachhead, and dropped down into my fighting stance. I took a few seconds, closed my eyes, letting my ears take in the sounds of the rolling ocean, and then proceeded to practice my basic attacks.

I started with my punches and kicks, proceeding onto my close combat throws, holds, elbows and knees, before going onto my small and medium sized ki blast attacks. When it came time to use the energy attacks, I directed them all into the sea, controlling their course beyond the gravity field and into the ocean. I must've fired a few hundred blasts before I began to grow tired. Still, I continued on, throwing wave after wave of the ki flashes mercilessly into the water in front of me.

When I finally gave up, almost all my energy had been expended, and I sunk to the ground, gasping for air. I looked up into the sky, and saw the sun had changed positions since I last stared into it. It was now beginning to descend away from me, beginning to allow the darkness to cover the sky.

I continued to take in deep breaths, just staring out into the ocean. I hit some sort of a trance; my breathing slowed, my eyes remained fixated on nothing in particular, and my mind began to wander. It was kind of like meditation, except for the fact I lost all control of my mind, like it was separated from my soul and body. It drifted over my memories of that last night, but luckily didn't remain fixated on them. Instead it concentrated on one thing, like an epicentre of thought within my memory.

Before me hung the moon, glowing dimly, seemingly resting on the surface of the ocean in front of my eyes. Now if I'd had control of my own mind, I probably would've realized that the moon had been destroyed, and that I must've been seeing things. However, my mind had a thought of its own.

I stared at the fake moon. For how long, I don't know. I remember seeing the sun slowly moving down in the corner of my eye. After a while, the moon seemed to get brighter and brighter, almost like it was moving towards me.

Soon the light was blinding, but I continued to stare straight into it. Then suddenly, an epiphany. A moment of clarity unlike anything I'd ever felt or heard of before. I slowly brought my hand up, still staring at the moon straight ahead of me. I opened my palm upwards, curved my fingers up like I was holding a large ball in my hands, and then began to send my ki energy into it.

Soon a small ball of energy sprung up from my palm. I didn't look at it, didn't even really notice it, I still stared straight into the moon. Slowly, oh so slowly, the moon began to move. It drifted slowly, moving towards my outstretched hand. It came closer and closer, seemingly taking an eternity, before it reached my hand. Then the moon began to disappear, replaced by a light very, very similar to its own.

Eventually the moon was gone, and in its place was the ball of energy I had created. It seemed familiar, almost like I'd seen it before. Then I realized, I had. It was the moon, or something very similar to it, and I had created it.

I gazed into the ball of light, bore into it with my pupils. As I did so, the hair on my arms began to rise, the fur on my tail began to prick up, and I began to sense my power rising. The realization that I held a miniature moon in my palm struck me, and I quickly crushed it with my hand.

Immediately my hairs fell back into place, my power level fell back down, and I fell into a heap in the sand. I laid on my back for a good long while, trying to understand what I had done, but failing for the longest time. A wave of weakness and tiredness I'd rarely felt before came upon me, and I began to nod off to sleep.

I tried weakly to keep my eyes open, but failed terribly. I laid in the sand with my eyes closed, not knowing if I would wake up.


End file.
